CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVITHE DIVINE MISSION AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS1. Growth of Luther’s Idea of his Divine MissionWhereasthe most zealous of Luther’s earliest pupils and followers outvied one another in depicting their master as the messenger of God, who had come before the world equipped with revelations from on high, the tendency of later Protestantism has been, more and more, to reduce Luther, so to speak, to a merely natural level, and to represent him as a hero indeed, but as one inspired by merely human motives. An earlier generation exalted him to mystical regions, and, being nearer him in point of time and therefore knowing him better, grasped the fact that he was dominated by a certain supernaturalism. Many later and more recent writers, on the other hand, have preferred to square their conception of his personality with their own liberal views on religion. They hail Luther as the champion of free thought and therefore as the founder of modern intellectual life. What he discovered in his struggles with himself by reflection and pious meditation, that, they say, he bequeathed to posterity without insisting upon the immutability of his ideas or claiming for them any infallibility. His only permanent work, his real legacy to posterity, was a negative one, viz. the breach with Popery, which he consummated, thanks to his extraordinary powers.This is, however, from the religious standpoint, to attenuate Luther’s figure as it appears in history, notwithstanding the tribute paid to his talents.If he is not the “messenger of God,” whose doctrines, inspired from on high, the world was bound to accept, then he ceases to be Luther, for it was from his supernatural estimate of himself that he drew all his strength and defiance.Force him to quit the dim, mystical heights from which he fancies he exercises his sway, and his claim on the faith of mankind becomes inexplicable and he himself an enigma.It has been pointed out above, how Luther gradually reached the conviction that he had received his doctrine by a special revelation, with the Divine mission to communicate it to the world and to reform the Church (vol. ii., p. 92 f.). The conviction, that, as he declares, “the Holy Ghost had revealed the Scriptures” to him culminated in that personal assurance of salvation which was suddenly vouchsafed to him in the Tower.[284]It will repay us to examine more closely the nature of this idea, and its manifestations, now that we have the mature man before us.The founder of the new Church has reached a period when he no longer scruples to speak of the “revelations” which had been made to him, and which he is compelled to proclaim. “By His Grace,” he says, “God has revealed this doctrine to me.”[285]—“I have it by revelation ... that will I not deny.”[286]Of his mission he assures us: “By God’s revelation I am called to be a sort of antipope”;[287]of his chief dogma, he will have it that “the Holy Ghost bestowed it upon me,”[288]and declares that “under pain of the curse of eternal reprobation” he had been “instructed (‘interminatum’) not to doubt of it in any way.”[289]Of this he solemnly assured the Elector Frederick in a letter written in 1522: “Concerning my cause I would say: Your Electoral Highness is aware, or, if not aware, is hereby apprised of the fact, that I received the Evangel, not from man, but from heavenalone through our Lord Jesus Christ, so that I might well subscribe myself and boast of being a minister and evangelist—as, indeed, I shall do for the future.”[290]It is because he has received the Word of God direct from on high that he is so firm. “God’s Word,” he cries, “is above everything to me; I have the Divine Majesty on my side, therefore I care not in the least though a thousand Augustines, or a thousand Harry-Churches [Henry VIII. of England was then still a Catholic] should be against me; I am quite certain that the true Church holds fast with me to God’s Word, and leaves it to the Harry-Churches to depend on the words of men.”[291]There are many passages in which he merely claims to have been enlightened in his ruminations and labours and thus led to embrace the real, saving truth; less frequently do we hear of any actual, sudden inspiration from above. Where he does claim this most distinctly is in the matter of the discovery of his chief doctrine, viz. assurance of salvation by justifying faith, vouchsafed to him in the Tower of the Wittenberg monastery. The fact that his mode of expression varies may be explained not merely by his own involuntary wavering, but by the very difficulty of imparting his favourite doctrine to others. His frame of mind, outward circumstances and the character of his hearers or readers were the cause of his choice of words. With his friends, for instance, more particularly the younger ones, and likewise in his sermons at Wittenberg, he was fond of laying stress on what he had once said to the lawyers when they molested him with Canon Law: “They shall respect our teaching, which is the Word of God spoken by the Holy Ghost through our lips.”[292]When speaking to larger audiences, on the other hand, he does not as a rule claim more than a gradual, inner enlightenment by God, which indeed partakes of the nature of a revelation, but to which he was led by his work and study and inward experience. In the presence of the fanatics he became, after 1524, more cautious in his claims, owing to the similar ones made on their own behalf by these sectarians.Yet the idea of an assurance born of God lies at the bottom of all his statements.He worked himself into this belief until it became part of his nature.[293]He had to face many doubts and scruples, but he overcame them, and, in the latter years of his life, we hear little of any such. His struggle with these doubts, which clearly betray the faulty basis of his conviction, will be dealt with elsewhere.[294]“I am certain and am determined to feel so.” Expressions such as this are not seldom to be met with in Luther’s letters and writings.[295]An almost appalling strength of will lurks behind such assurances. Indeed, what impels him seems to savour more of self-suggestion than of inward experience. To the objections brought forward by his adversaries he frequently enough merely opposes his “certainty”; behind this he endeavours to conceal the defects of his proofs from Scripture, and his inability to reply to the reasons urged against him. His determination to find conviction constitutes one of Luther’s salient psychological characteristics; of the Titanic strength at his disposal he made proof first and foremost in his own case.Luther also succeeded in inducing in himself a pseudo-mystic mood in which he fancied himself acting in everything conformably with a Divine mission, everywhere specially guided and protected as beseemed a messenger of God.For instance, he says that he wrote the pamphlet against the seditious peasants in obedience to a Divine command; “therefore my little book is right and will always be so, though all the world should be incensed at it.”[296]“It is the Lord Who has done this,” he had declared of the Peasant Rising when he recognised in it elements favourable to his cause; “It is the Lord Who has done this and Who conceals these menaces and dangers from the eyes of the Princes, and will even bring it about Himself by means of their blindness and violence.” That the Princes arethreatened with destruction, that “I firmly believe the Spirit proclaims through me.”[297]Later on he was no less sure that he could foresee in the Spirit the coming outbreak of a religious war in Germany; only the prayers which he—who had the Divine interests so much at heart—offered, could avail to stave off the war; at least the delay was mainly the result of this prayer: “I am assured that God really hearkens to my prayer, and I know that so long as I live there will be no war in Germany.”Never does he tire of declaring that the misfortunes and deaths which his foes have to deplore are the result of the intervention of heaven on behalf of his cause.[298]He was convinced that he had repeatedly been cured in sickness and saved from death by Christ, by Him, as he says in 1534, “in Whose faith I commenced all this and carried it through, to the admiration even of my opponents.”[299]He, “one of the Apostles and Evangelists of Germany, is,” so he proclaims in 1526 in a pamphlet, “a man delivered over to death and only preserved in life by a wonder and in defiance of the wrath of the devil and his saints.”[300]In February, 1520, he speaks of the intimation he has received of a great storm impending, were God not to place some hindrance in the way of Satan. “I have seen Satan’s cunning plans for my destruction and that of many others. Doubtless the Divine Word can never be administered without confusion, tumult and danger. It is a word of boundless majesty, it works great things and is wonderful on high.” This was to be his only guide in his undertaking. He was compelled, so he declared on the same occasion, “to leave the whole matter to God, to resign himself to His guidance and to look on while wind and waves make the ship their plaything.”[301]He frequently repeats later that his professorship at the University had been bestowed upon him by a Divine dispensation and against his will; whereas others werehonoured for their academic labours, he complains to Spalatin of being persecuted; “I teach against my will and yet I have to endure evil things.” “What I now do and have done, I was compelled to do.” “I have enough sins on my conscience without incurring the unpardonable one of being unfaithful to my office, of refraining from scourging evil and of neglecting the truth to the detriment of so many thousand souls.”[302]—At the time when the Disputation at Leipzig was preparing, he tells the same confidant that the matter must be left to God: “I do not desire that it should happen according to our designs, otherwise I would prefer to desist from it altogether.” Spalatin must not desire to see the matter judged and settled according to human wisdom, but should remember that we know nothing of “God’s plans.”[303]Everything had befallen him in accordance with God’s design. It was in accordance therewith, nay, “at the command of God,” that he had become a monk, so at least he says later. This, too, was his reason for giving up the office in choir and the recitation of the Breviary. “Our Lord God dragged me by force from the canonical hours, anno 1520.”[304]His marriage likewise was the direct result of God’s plan. “The Lord suddenly flung me into matrimony in a wonderful way while my thoughts were set in quite another direction.”[305]At an earlier date he had, so he said, defended the theses of his Resolutions only “because God compelled him to advance all these propositions.”[306]His first encounter with Dr. Eck took place, so he was persuaded, “at God’s behest.”[307]“God takes good care that I should not be idle.”[308]It is God Who “calls and compels him” to return to Wittenberg after his stay at the Wartburg.[309]—It is not surprising, then, that he also attributes to God’s doing the increase in the number of his friends and followers.The success of his efforts to bring about a great falling away from the Catholic Church he regarded as a clear Divine confirmation of his mission, so that “no higher proof or miracle was needed.”[310]Even the disturbance and tumult which resulted bore witness in his favour, since Christ says: “I am come to send a sword.” All around him prevailed “discord, revolt and uproar,”[311]because, forsooth, the Gospel was there at work; the calm, unquestioned sovereignty of Popery within its own boundaries was a sure sign of its being the devil’s own.[312]“Did I not meet with curses, I should not believe that my cause was from God.”[313]It is evident from these and other like statements how greatly his fame, the increase of his followers and his unexpected success engrossed and intoxicated him. In judging of him we must not under-estimate the effect of the din of applause in encouraging him in his self-suggestion. The cheers of so great a crowd, as Erasmus remarked in a letter to Melanchthon, might well have turned the head even of the humblest man. What anchor could have held the bark exposed to such a storm? Outbursts such as the following, to which Luther gave vent under the influence of the deafening ovation, were only to be expected of such a man as he, when he had once cut himself adrift from the Church: “God has now given judgment ... and, contrary to the expectation of the whole world, has brought things to such a pass.... The position of the Pope grows daily worse, that we may extol the work of God herein.”[314]Under the magic influence of the unhoped-for growth of his movement of revolt, he declared it could only be due to a higher power, “which so disposed things that even the gates of hell were unable to prevent them.” Not he, but “another man, drives the wheel.” It is as clear as day that no man could, single-handed, have achieved so much, and, by “mere word of mouth,” done more harm to the Pope, the bishops, priests and monks than all worldly powers hitherto.[315]Christ was working for him so strenuously, so he declares in allseriousness, that he might well calmly await His complete victory over Antichrist; for this reason there was really no need to trouble about the ecclesiastical organisation of the new Church, or to think of all the things it would otherwise have been necessary for him to remember.His mere success was not the only Divine witness in his favour; Luther was also of opinion that owing to God’s notable working, signs and wonders had taken place in plenty in confirmation of the new teaching; such Divine wonders, however, must not be “thrown to the winds.”[316]He seems, nevertheless, to have had at one time the intention of collecting and publishing these miracles.[317]In short, “the first-fruits of the Grace of God,” he says, have come upon us; in these he was unwilling that later teachers, who differed from him, should be allowed to participate.[318]Was not the guidance of Christ also plainly visible in the fact that he, the proclaimer of His Word, had been delivered from so many ambushes on the part of the enemies who lay in wait for him? Such a thought lay at the root of his words to his pupil Mathesius: There was no doubt that poison had frequently been administered to him, but “an important personage had been heard to say, that none had any effect on him.” On one occasion, however, when an attempt had been made to poison him, He “Who said, ‘If they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them,’ blessed him, and preserved him then and afterwards from all mischief.”[319]“I also believe,” Luther once said, according to Bindseil’s Latin “Colloquia,” that “my pulpit-chair and cushion were frequently poisoned, yet God preserved me.”[320]Similar words are recorded in the Diary of Cordatus.[321]This accounts for the strange tales which grew up amongst his pupils and followers of how “God Almighty had always preserved him in a wonderful manner,” of how He “had affrighted the knaves” who sought his life, and so forth, of which the early editions of Luther’s Works have so much to say.Among the characteristics most highly extolled by his earliest followers as exemplifying his mission must be instanced, first, his inflexible courage, amounting frequently to foolhardiness, in the accomplishment of his set task, viz. the establishing of the Evangel and the destruction of Popery; secondly, his extraordinary capacity for work and the perseverance of which he gave such signal proof in his literary undertakings; thirdly, his entire disregard for temporal advantages, which he himself held up as an example to those of the evangelical preachers whose worldliness had become a reproach to the Lutheran cause.Very strange and remarkable is the connection between Luther’s mysticism and the simple and homely view he took of life; the pleasure with which he welcomed everything good which came in his way—so far as it was free from any trace of Popery—the kindly, practical turn of his manner of thinking and acting when among his own people, and that love for humour and good cheer which so strikingly contrasts with the puritanical behaviour of his opponents, the Anabaptists and fanatics.To reconcile his mysticism with habits at first blush so divergent would present quite a problem in itself were we not to take into account the fact, that homeliness and humour had been his from the very beginning, whereas his mysticism was a later growth, always to some extent alien to his character. His mysticism he carefully confined to what related to his supposed Divine mission, though at times he does indeed seem to extend indefinitely the range of this mission. Yet, when the duties of his office had cost him pain or tried his temper, he was ever glad to return to the realities of life, and to seek relief in social intercourse or in his family circle.When it was a question of the working of miracles by the heaven-sent messenger, he was of too practical a turn of mind to appeal to anything but the ostensible tokens of the Divine favour worked around him and on his behalf in proof of the truth of the new Evangel. He carefully avoided attributing any miracles to his own powers, even when assisted by Divine grace, though, occasionally, he seems to imply that, were the need to arise, he might well work wonders by the power of God, were he only to ask it of Him. With the question of miracles and predictionsas proofs of Luther’s Divine mission we shall deal later (p. 153 ff.).While on the one hand Luther’s views of miracles and prophecies witness to an error which was not without effect on his persuasion of his Divine mission, on the other his pseudo-mystic notion of his special calling led him superstitiously to see in chance events of history either the extraordinary confirmation of his mission or the celestial condemnation of Popery.We know that Luther not only shared the superstitions of his contemporaries, but also defended them with all the weight of his great name and literary talents.[322]When at Vienna, in January, 1520, something unusual was perceived in the sky, he at once referred it to “his tragedy,” as he had done even previously in similar cases. He also expressed the wish that he himself might be favoured with some such sign. The noisy spirits which had formerly disturbed people had, he believed, been reduced in number throughout the world solely owing to his Evangel. The omnipotence of the devil and the evil he worked on men was, so he thought, to be restrained only by the power of that Word which had again been made known to the world, thanks to his preaching.[323]It was his intention to publish an account of the demoniacal happenings which had taken place in his day and which confirmed his mission; he was only prevented from doing this by want of time.[324]To astrology, unlike Melanchthon, he ever showed himself averse.Another element which loomed large in his persuasion that he was a prophet was his so-called “temptations,” i.e. the mental troubles, which, so he thought, were caused by the devil and which, coinciding as they often did with other sufferings, were sometimes the cause of long fits of misery and dejection.[325]These temptations in their most extreme form Luther compared with the death-agony. His extraordinary experiences, of which he never understood the pathological cause, were regarded by him as God’s own testimony to his election. His conviction was that, by imposing on him these pangs of hell, God was cleansing him for the grand task assigned to him, even as He had done with other favoured souls in the past. When plunged in the abyss of such sufferings he felt like St. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, who likewise was buffeted by Satan (vol. i., p. 381 f.), and whom he would fain have emulated in his “revelations” of the Divine mysteries. Only in the sequel, however, will it be possible to describe Luther’s pathology for the benefit of those to whom it may be of interest.All his troubles, whether due to doubt and sadness or to the fury of foes stirred up by Satan against him, he utilised, so he tells us, as an incentive to immerse himself ever more and more in the study of Holy Scripture, to cultivate the understanding bestowed upon him, and to seek its practical applications. “My theology was not all learnt in a day; I was obliged to explore deeper and deeper to acquire it. My temptations helped me, for it is impossible to understand Holy Scripture without experience and temptations. This is what the fanatics and unruly spirits lack, viz. that capital gainsayer the devil, who alone can teach a man this. St. Paul had a devil, who beat him with his fists and drove him by the way of temptation diligently to study Holy Scripture. I have had the Pope, the Universities and all the scholars, and, behind them all, the devil, hanging round my neck: they drove me to the Bible and made me read it until at length I reached the right understanding of it. Unless we have such a devil, we remain mere speculative theologians, for whose precious imaginings the world is not much better.”[326]This casual saying of Luther’s gives us a good glimpse into his customary process of thought when in presence of troubles and temptations, great or small.The above passage, moreover, agrees with many similar statements of his, inasmuch as, far from ascribing his doctrine to any actual revelation, he makes its discovery to result from effort on his part, under the guidance of a higher illumination. Luther, less than any other, could scarcelyhave been unconscious of the gradual change in his views, more particularly at the outset of his career as Evangelist and prophet; at the very least it was clear that, in the earlier period of his higher mission, he had taught much that was borrowed from Popery and which he discarded only later; at that time, as he puts it, he was still “besotted with Popery.”Periodic Upheaval of Luther’s Idea of his Divine Mission.Luther’s consciousness of his Divine mission found expression with varying degrees of intensity at different periods of his life.At certain junctures, notably when historic events were impending, it was apt to burst forth, producing in him effects of a character almost terrifying. Such was the case, for instance, in the days which immediately preceded and followed the proclamation of the Bull of Excommunication. At that time it seemed as though every spirit of revolt had entered into him to use him as a tool for defying the authority of the Church. Such was the depth of his persuasion, that he, the excommunicate, was carried away to proclaim his unassailable prophetic rights in tones of the utmost conviction.Towards the end of his stay at the Wartburg and during the first period of his struggle with the Anabaptists at Wittenberg, we again hear him insisting on his own exalted mission; owing, however, to the mystic illumination of which the fanatics boasted, his claims are now based, not so much on mystical considerations, as on the “outward Word,” whose authentic representative he had, by his works, proved himself to be.The loneliness and gloom of the Wartburg and his “diabolical” experiences there doubtless helped to convince him yet more of the reality of his mission. The ensuing struggle with those of the innovators who differed from him and even threatened to oust him, acted as a further stimulus and aroused his powers of resistance to the utmost. Nor must we forget the threatening attitude of the Imperial authorities at Nuremberg, whom he was resolved to oppose with the greatest determination; only by impressing on his followers that he was something more than humanwould it be possible for him successfully to hold in check the hostility of Emperor and Princes. The supposed world-wide success of his venture also dazed him at this critical juncture, a fact which further elucidates the situation.Triumphantly he cries: “The Lord has already begun to mock at Satan and his slaves. Satan is in truth vanquished, and the Pope, too, with all his abominations! Now our only concern is the soap-bubble which has swelled to such alarming dimensions [the Nuremberg menace]. We believe in Christ, the Son of God, believe in His dominion over life and death. Whom then shall we fear? The first-fruits of victory have already fallen to us; we rejoice at the overthrow of the Papal tyranny, whereas formerly Kings and Princes were content to submit to its oppression; how much easier will it be to vanquish and despise the Princes themselves!”“If Christ assures us,” he continues in this same letter, one of the first dispatched after his “Patmos” at the Wartburg, “that the Father has placed all things under His feet, it is certain that He lieth not; ‘all things’ must also comprise the mighty ones assembled at Nuremberg, not to speak of that Dresden bubble [Duke George of Saxony]. Let them therefore set about deposing Christ. We, however, will calmly look on while the Father Almighty preserves His Son at His right hand from the face and the tail of these smoking firebrands” (Isa. vii. 4). Should a rising or a tumult among the people ensue “which cannot be suppressed by force, then that will be the Lord’s own work; He conceals the danger from the sight of the Princes; and, owing to their blindness and rebellion, He will work such things that methinks all Germany will be deluged with blood. We shall ‘set ourselves like a hedge before God in favour of the land and the people’ (Ezek. xxii. 30), in this day of His great wrath, wherefore do you and your people pray for us.”These words were addressed to an old Augustinian friend to whom he showed himself undisguisedly and in his true colours. In the same letter he has it that he considers it quite certain that Carlstadt, Gabriel Zwilling and the fanatical Anabaptists were preaching without any real call, in fact, against God’s will. To himself he applies the words of our Redeemer: “He Whom God has sent speaketh the words of God” (John iii. 34), and “He that seeketh the glory of Him that sent Him is true” (John vii. 18). Fully convinced of the Divine inspiration and compulsion he exclaims: “For this reason did I yield to necessity and return [from the Wartburg], viz. that I might, if God wills, put an end to this devils’ uproar” (of the fanatics).[327]If Luther sought to show the fanatics that their fruits bore witness against them and their doctrine, it is worthy of note that Staupitz, his former Superior, about this very time, confronted Luther with the disastrous fruits of his action, in order to dissuade him from the course he was pursuing. Staupitz, who so far had been his patron, had grown apprehensive of the character of the movement. His warning, however, only acted as oil on the flame of the enthusiasm then surging up in Luther. In his reply, dated in May, 1522, we find the real Luther, the prophet full of his own great plans: “You write that my undertaking is praised [by discreditable people], and by those who frequent houses of ill-fame, and that much scandal has been given by my latest writings. I am not surprised at this, neither am I apprehensive. It is certain that we for our part have been careful to proclaim the pure Word without causing any tumult; the good and the bad alike make use of this Word, and this, as you know, we cannot help.... For we do what Christ foretold when He commanded the angels to collect and remove out of His Kingdom all scandals. Father, I cannot do otherwise than destroy the Kingdom of the Pope, the Kingdom of abomination and wickedness together with all its train. God is already doing this without us, without any assistance from us, merely by His Word. The end of this Kingdom is come before the Lord. The matter far exceeds our powers of comprehension.... Great commotion of minds, great scandals and great signs must follow, in view of God’s greatness. But, dear father, I hope this will not trouble you; God’s plan is visible in these things and His mighty hand. You will remember that at the outset everybody thought my undertaking suspicious, doubtful and altogether too bad, and yet it has held the field and will hold its own in spite of your apprehensions; only have patience. Satan feels the smart of his wound, and that is why he rages so greatly and sets all at loggerheads. But Christ Who has begun the work will trample him under foot; and the gates of hell will do their worst, but all in vain.”So perverted an application of the promise solemnly made by Christ to the Church of Peter, that the gates of hell should not prevail against it, had surely never before been heard. Words such as these would even sound incredible did we not learn from the same letter into what a state of nervous excitement the ban and excommunication had plunged him. At Antwerp, Jacob Probst, one of his followers, was to be burned with two of his comrades, and in various localities Luther’s writings, by order of the authorities, were being consigned to the flames. This it was which made him say in his letter: “My death by fire is already under discussion; but I only defy Satan and his myrmidons the more that the day of Christ may be hastened, when an end will be put to Antichrist. Farewell, father, and pray for me.... The Evangel is a scandal to the self-righteous and to all who think themselves wise.”[328]The later occasions on which this peculiar mystic idea asserted itself most strongly and vividly were during the exciting events of the Peasant War of 1525; in 1528, at the time his Evangel was in danger from the Empire, while he was tormented within; his sojourn in the fortress of Coburg during the much-dreaded Diet of Augsburg, in 1530, when he again endured profound mental agony; the period of the Schmalkald negotiations, in 1537, when the Council of Trent had already been summoned, while Luther was suffering much from disease; finally, in the last years of his life, accompanied as they were by recurring friction with the various Courts and hostile parties, when a growing bitterness dominated his spirit.In this last period of his career the sense of his Divine mission revived in full force, never again to quit him. His statements concerning his mission now bear a more pessimistic stamp, but he nevertheless holds fast to it and allows nothing to disconcert him by any suspicion of a mistake on his part, nor does he betray any trace of his earlier doubts and misgivings.“We know that it is God’s cause,” he says in 1541 to the Electoral Chancellor Brück: “God has commenced it and carried it through, and He too will finish it! Whoever does not wish to follow us, let him fall to the rear, with the Emperor and the Turk; all the devils shall gain nothing here, let what God wills befall us.”[329]“It annoys me that they should esteem these things [of the Evangel] as though they were secular, Imperial, Turkish or princely matters to be decided and controlled, bestowed and accepted by reason alone. It is a matter which God and the devil with their respective angels must arrange. Whoever does not believe this will do no good in the business.”[330]When the negotiations at Ratisbon seemed to be exposing the timorous Melanchthon to the “snares of Satan,” Luther in his wonted presumptuous fashion wrote to him: “Our cause is not to be controlled by our own action, but only by God’s Providence. The Word progresses, prayer is ardent, hope endures, faith conquers, so that verily we cannot but see it, and might even sleep calmly and feast were we not so carnal; for the words of Moses are also addressed to us: ‘The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace’ (cp. Exod. xiv. 14). It is certainthat the Lord is fighting, that He is slowly and gradually descending from His Throne to the [Last] Judgment which we so anxiously look for. The signs announcing the approaching Judgment are all too numerous.... Hence put away all fear. Be strong and glad and untroubled, for the Lord is near. Let them undertake what they please, the Henrys [he is thinking of Henry of Brunswick, an opponent], the bishops, and likewise the Turks and Satan himself. We are children of the kingdom, and we await and honour Him as our Saviour Whom these Henrys spit upon and crucify anew.”[331]In what frame of mind he then was, and what strange judgments he could pass, is seen even more plainly from what he adds concerning a tract he had just published against Duke Henry of Brunswick.This work, entitled “Wider Hans Worst,” is, in style and matter, an attack of indescribable violence on this Catholic prince and Catholics in general. Yet Luther writes of it to Melanchthon: “I have re-read my book against this devil, and I cannot understand what has happened to make me so restrained. I attribute it to my headache which prevented my mind from being carried away on the wings of the storm.” The “bloodhound and incendiary assassin,” as he calls the Duke, would otherwise have had to listen to a very different song for having compelled Luther to “waste his time on Henry’s devil’s excrement.” That the Duke had been the originator of the appalling number of fires which occurred in the Electorate of Hesse in 1540, both Luther and Melanchthon were firmly convinced. Luther’s readiness to cherish the blackest suspicions, his volcanic rage against Catholics, the pessimism of his reiterated cry: “Let everything fall, stand or sink into ruins, as it pleases; let things take their own course,”[332]form a remarkable accompaniment to the thrilling tones in which he again asserts his consciousness of the fulfilment of his Divine mission.We must here revert to some of Luther’s Statements concerning the triumphant progress of the Evangel and the determined resistance to be offered to all opposing forces—solemn declarations which attain their full meaning only in the light of his idea of his own Divine mission. We give the gist of the passages already quoted in detail elsewhere. These passages, which reek of revolution, are altogether inspired by the glowing idea of his heavenly mission apart from which they are scarcely comprehensible.“If war is to come of it, let it come,” etc. “Princely foes are delivered up to us as a holocaust in order that they maybe rewarded according to their works”; God will “deliver His people even from the fiery furnace of Babylon.”[333]“Let things run on merrily and be prepared for the worst,” “whether it be war or revolt, as God’s anger may decree.”[334]“Let justice take its course even should the whole world fall into ruins.”[335]“It is said, ‘If the Pope fall, Germany will perish.’[336]But what has this to do with me?”“It is God’s Word. Let what cannot stand, fall, and what is not to remain, pass away.” “It is a great thing,” he continues, “that for the sake of the young man [the Divine Redeemer] this Jewish Kingdom and the Divine Service which had been so gloriously instituted and ordered should fall to the ground.” Not Christ alone, he says, had spoken of His work in the same way that he (Luther) did of his own, but St. Paul also, in spite of his grief over the Jews, had, like himself, constantly declared: “The Word is true, else everything must fall into ruins; for He Who sent me and commanded me to preach, will not lie.”[337]His followers recalled his words, that it were better “all churches, convents and foundations throughout the world should be rooted out” than that “even one soul should be seduced by such [Popish] error.”[338]And again: “Are we to forswear the truth?” “Would it be strange were the rulers, the nobles and laity to fall upon the Pope, the bishops, priests and monks and drive them out of the land?” They had brought it upon themselves and it was necessary “to pray for them.”[339]But prayer might not suffice. If no improvement took place, then “a general destruction of all the foundations and convents would be the best reformation.”[340]These outbursts date almost all from the time of the Diet of Augsburg, or that immediately succeeding it. They might, however, be compared with some earlier utterances not one whit less full of fanaticism; for instance, where he says to the Elector, in 1522: “Not only the spiritual but also the secular power must yield to the Evangel, whether willingly or unwillingly”;[341]or the opening sentences of his “Bull of the Evening Feed of our Most Holy Lord the Pope” (1522): “After having had to put up with so many hawkers of bulls, cardinals ... and the countless horde of extortioners and swindlers and knaves whom the Rhine would hardly suffice to drown ...!”[342]A flood of rage and passionate enthusiasm for his mission finds vent in these words: “If they hope ever to exterminate the Turks they must begin with the Pope.”[343]“The Pope drives the whole world from the Christian faith to his devilish lies, so that the Pope’s rule is ten times worse than that of the Turk for both body and soul.”[344]Previous to this, in February, 1519, he reveals in the following words the agitation and ferment going on within him: “I adjure you,” he says to his friend Spalatin, “if you would think aright of the Evangel, not to imagine that such a cause can be fought out without tumults, scandal and rebellion. You cannot make a pen out of a sword, or peace of war. The Word of God is a sword, war, ruin, scandal, destruction, poison and, as we read in the Old Covenant, ‘Like to a bear in the road and a lioness in the wood,’ so it withstands the sons of Ephraim.”[345]No Apostle or Prophet ever laid claim to a Divine authorisation for their preaching in language so violent. Indeed, mere phrases and extracts from his writings scarcely suffice to give a true picture of the intensity of his prepossession for his supposed Divine calling and of his furious hatred of his opponents. It would, in fact, be necessary to read in their entirety certain of his polemical works. That they have not done so is the explanation why so many know only a polished Luther and have scarcely an inkling of the fierceness of the struggle which centred round his consciousnessof a Divine mission, and of the depth of his animosity against those who dared to gainsay him.Nor was this consciousness of his without its effects on those around him. During the long years of his public life, it kindled the passion of thousands and contributed largely to the Peasant Revolt and the unhappy religious wars which followed later. Indirectly it was also productive of disaster for the Empire by forcing it to make terms with the turbulent elements within, and by preventing it from displaying a united front against the Turks and other enemies without. On the other hand, in the case of very many who honestly looked on Luther as a real reformer of the Church, it also served to infuse into them new enthusiasm for what they deemed the Christian cause.Its effect on Luther’s character in later life was such as to make him, in his writings to the German people, rave like a maniac of the different forms of death best suited for Pope and Cardinals, viz. being hanged on the gallows with their tongues torn out, being drowned in the Tyrrhenean Sea, or “flayed alive.”[346]“How my flesh creeps and how my blood boils,” he cries, after one such outburst.[347]If we remember the frenzy with which he carried out his religious enterprise, the high tension at which he ever worked and his inexhaustible source of eloquence, it is easy to fancy ourselves face to face with something more than human. The real nature of the spirit which, throughout Luther’s life, was ever so frantically at work within him, must for ever remain a secret. One eye alone, that of the All-seeing, can pierce these depths. Anxious Catholic contemporaries of Luther’s strongly suspected that they had to deal with one possessed by the evil spirit. This opinion was openly voiced, first by Johann Nathin, Luther’s contemporary at the Erfurt monastery, by Emser, Cochlæus, Dungersheim and certain other early opponents, and then by several others whose testimony will be heard later (vol. iv., xxvii., 1).Catholic contemporaries also urged that his claim to a Divine mission was mere impudence. A simple monk, hitherto quite unknown to the world, so they said, breakshis vows and dares to set himself in opposition to the universal Church. A man, whose repute was not of the best, and who not only lacked any higher attestation, but actually exhibited in his doctrine of evangelical freedom, in the disorderly lives of his followers and in the dissensions promoted by his fanatical and stormy rhetoric, those very signs which our Redeemer had warned His disciples would follow false prophets—such a man, they argued, could surely not be a reformer, but was rather a destroyer, of Christendom; he perceives not that the Church, for all her present abuses and corruption, has nevertheless all down the ages scattered throughout the world the Divine blessings committed to her care by a promise which shall never fail, and that she will soon rise again purer and more beautiful than ever, for the lasting benefit of mankind.Luther, on the contrary, sought to base his claim to a Divine mission on the abuses rampant in Popery, which, he would have it, was altogether under the dominion of the devil and quite beyond redemption.2. His Mission Alleged against the PapistsLuther, subsequent to his apostasy, accustomed himself to speak of Catholicism in a fashion scarcely credible. He did not shrink even from the grossest and most impudent depreciation of the Church of the Popes. His incessant indulgence in such abuse calls for some examination into its nature and the mental state of which it was a product.The Pope and the Papacy.The Roman Curia, Luther repeatedly declared, did not believe one word of all the truths of religion; at the faithful who held fast to Revelation they scoffed and called them good simpletons (“buoni cristiani”); they knew nothing either of the Creed or of the Our Father, and from all the ecclesiastical books put together not as much could be learnt as from one page of Martin Luther’s Catechism.

CHAPTER XVITHE DIVINE MISSION AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS1. Growth of Luther’s Idea of his Divine MissionWhereasthe most zealous of Luther’s earliest pupils and followers outvied one another in depicting their master as the messenger of God, who had come before the world equipped with revelations from on high, the tendency of later Protestantism has been, more and more, to reduce Luther, so to speak, to a merely natural level, and to represent him as a hero indeed, but as one inspired by merely human motives. An earlier generation exalted him to mystical regions, and, being nearer him in point of time and therefore knowing him better, grasped the fact that he was dominated by a certain supernaturalism. Many later and more recent writers, on the other hand, have preferred to square their conception of his personality with their own liberal views on religion. They hail Luther as the champion of free thought and therefore as the founder of modern intellectual life. What he discovered in his struggles with himself by reflection and pious meditation, that, they say, he bequeathed to posterity without insisting upon the immutability of his ideas or claiming for them any infallibility. His only permanent work, his real legacy to posterity, was a negative one, viz. the breach with Popery, which he consummated, thanks to his extraordinary powers.This is, however, from the religious standpoint, to attenuate Luther’s figure as it appears in history, notwithstanding the tribute paid to his talents.If he is not the “messenger of God,” whose doctrines, inspired from on high, the world was bound to accept, then he ceases to be Luther, for it was from his supernatural estimate of himself that he drew all his strength and defiance.Force him to quit the dim, mystical heights from which he fancies he exercises his sway, and his claim on the faith of mankind becomes inexplicable and he himself an enigma.It has been pointed out above, how Luther gradually reached the conviction that he had received his doctrine by a special revelation, with the Divine mission to communicate it to the world and to reform the Church (vol. ii., p. 92 f.). The conviction, that, as he declares, “the Holy Ghost had revealed the Scriptures” to him culminated in that personal assurance of salvation which was suddenly vouchsafed to him in the Tower.[284]It will repay us to examine more closely the nature of this idea, and its manifestations, now that we have the mature man before us.The founder of the new Church has reached a period when he no longer scruples to speak of the “revelations” which had been made to him, and which he is compelled to proclaim. “By His Grace,” he says, “God has revealed this doctrine to me.”[285]—“I have it by revelation ... that will I not deny.”[286]Of his mission he assures us: “By God’s revelation I am called to be a sort of antipope”;[287]of his chief dogma, he will have it that “the Holy Ghost bestowed it upon me,”[288]and declares that “under pain of the curse of eternal reprobation” he had been “instructed (‘interminatum’) not to doubt of it in any way.”[289]Of this he solemnly assured the Elector Frederick in a letter written in 1522: “Concerning my cause I would say: Your Electoral Highness is aware, or, if not aware, is hereby apprised of the fact, that I received the Evangel, not from man, but from heavenalone through our Lord Jesus Christ, so that I might well subscribe myself and boast of being a minister and evangelist—as, indeed, I shall do for the future.”[290]It is because he has received the Word of God direct from on high that he is so firm. “God’s Word,” he cries, “is above everything to me; I have the Divine Majesty on my side, therefore I care not in the least though a thousand Augustines, or a thousand Harry-Churches [Henry VIII. of England was then still a Catholic] should be against me; I am quite certain that the true Church holds fast with me to God’s Word, and leaves it to the Harry-Churches to depend on the words of men.”[291]There are many passages in which he merely claims to have been enlightened in his ruminations and labours and thus led to embrace the real, saving truth; less frequently do we hear of any actual, sudden inspiration from above. Where he does claim this most distinctly is in the matter of the discovery of his chief doctrine, viz. assurance of salvation by justifying faith, vouchsafed to him in the Tower of the Wittenberg monastery. The fact that his mode of expression varies may be explained not merely by his own involuntary wavering, but by the very difficulty of imparting his favourite doctrine to others. His frame of mind, outward circumstances and the character of his hearers or readers were the cause of his choice of words. With his friends, for instance, more particularly the younger ones, and likewise in his sermons at Wittenberg, he was fond of laying stress on what he had once said to the lawyers when they molested him with Canon Law: “They shall respect our teaching, which is the Word of God spoken by the Holy Ghost through our lips.”[292]When speaking to larger audiences, on the other hand, he does not as a rule claim more than a gradual, inner enlightenment by God, which indeed partakes of the nature of a revelation, but to which he was led by his work and study and inward experience. In the presence of the fanatics he became, after 1524, more cautious in his claims, owing to the similar ones made on their own behalf by these sectarians.Yet the idea of an assurance born of God lies at the bottom of all his statements.He worked himself into this belief until it became part of his nature.[293]He had to face many doubts and scruples, but he overcame them, and, in the latter years of his life, we hear little of any such. His struggle with these doubts, which clearly betray the faulty basis of his conviction, will be dealt with elsewhere.[294]“I am certain and am determined to feel so.” Expressions such as this are not seldom to be met with in Luther’s letters and writings.[295]An almost appalling strength of will lurks behind such assurances. Indeed, what impels him seems to savour more of self-suggestion than of inward experience. To the objections brought forward by his adversaries he frequently enough merely opposes his “certainty”; behind this he endeavours to conceal the defects of his proofs from Scripture, and his inability to reply to the reasons urged against him. His determination to find conviction constitutes one of Luther’s salient psychological characteristics; of the Titanic strength at his disposal he made proof first and foremost in his own case.Luther also succeeded in inducing in himself a pseudo-mystic mood in which he fancied himself acting in everything conformably with a Divine mission, everywhere specially guided and protected as beseemed a messenger of God.For instance, he says that he wrote the pamphlet against the seditious peasants in obedience to a Divine command; “therefore my little book is right and will always be so, though all the world should be incensed at it.”[296]“It is the Lord Who has done this,” he had declared of the Peasant Rising when he recognised in it elements favourable to his cause; “It is the Lord Who has done this and Who conceals these menaces and dangers from the eyes of the Princes, and will even bring it about Himself by means of their blindness and violence.” That the Princes arethreatened with destruction, that “I firmly believe the Spirit proclaims through me.”[297]Later on he was no less sure that he could foresee in the Spirit the coming outbreak of a religious war in Germany; only the prayers which he—who had the Divine interests so much at heart—offered, could avail to stave off the war; at least the delay was mainly the result of this prayer: “I am assured that God really hearkens to my prayer, and I know that so long as I live there will be no war in Germany.”Never does he tire of declaring that the misfortunes and deaths which his foes have to deplore are the result of the intervention of heaven on behalf of his cause.[298]He was convinced that he had repeatedly been cured in sickness and saved from death by Christ, by Him, as he says in 1534, “in Whose faith I commenced all this and carried it through, to the admiration even of my opponents.”[299]He, “one of the Apostles and Evangelists of Germany, is,” so he proclaims in 1526 in a pamphlet, “a man delivered over to death and only preserved in life by a wonder and in defiance of the wrath of the devil and his saints.”[300]In February, 1520, he speaks of the intimation he has received of a great storm impending, were God not to place some hindrance in the way of Satan. “I have seen Satan’s cunning plans for my destruction and that of many others. Doubtless the Divine Word can never be administered without confusion, tumult and danger. It is a word of boundless majesty, it works great things and is wonderful on high.” This was to be his only guide in his undertaking. He was compelled, so he declared on the same occasion, “to leave the whole matter to God, to resign himself to His guidance and to look on while wind and waves make the ship their plaything.”[301]He frequently repeats later that his professorship at the University had been bestowed upon him by a Divine dispensation and against his will; whereas others werehonoured for their academic labours, he complains to Spalatin of being persecuted; “I teach against my will and yet I have to endure evil things.” “What I now do and have done, I was compelled to do.” “I have enough sins on my conscience without incurring the unpardonable one of being unfaithful to my office, of refraining from scourging evil and of neglecting the truth to the detriment of so many thousand souls.”[302]—At the time when the Disputation at Leipzig was preparing, he tells the same confidant that the matter must be left to God: “I do not desire that it should happen according to our designs, otherwise I would prefer to desist from it altogether.” Spalatin must not desire to see the matter judged and settled according to human wisdom, but should remember that we know nothing of “God’s plans.”[303]Everything had befallen him in accordance with God’s design. It was in accordance therewith, nay, “at the command of God,” that he had become a monk, so at least he says later. This, too, was his reason for giving up the office in choir and the recitation of the Breviary. “Our Lord God dragged me by force from the canonical hours, anno 1520.”[304]His marriage likewise was the direct result of God’s plan. “The Lord suddenly flung me into matrimony in a wonderful way while my thoughts were set in quite another direction.”[305]At an earlier date he had, so he said, defended the theses of his Resolutions only “because God compelled him to advance all these propositions.”[306]His first encounter with Dr. Eck took place, so he was persuaded, “at God’s behest.”[307]“God takes good care that I should not be idle.”[308]It is God Who “calls and compels him” to return to Wittenberg after his stay at the Wartburg.[309]—It is not surprising, then, that he also attributes to God’s doing the increase in the number of his friends and followers.The success of his efforts to bring about a great falling away from the Catholic Church he regarded as a clear Divine confirmation of his mission, so that “no higher proof or miracle was needed.”[310]Even the disturbance and tumult which resulted bore witness in his favour, since Christ says: “I am come to send a sword.” All around him prevailed “discord, revolt and uproar,”[311]because, forsooth, the Gospel was there at work; the calm, unquestioned sovereignty of Popery within its own boundaries was a sure sign of its being the devil’s own.[312]“Did I not meet with curses, I should not believe that my cause was from God.”[313]It is evident from these and other like statements how greatly his fame, the increase of his followers and his unexpected success engrossed and intoxicated him. In judging of him we must not under-estimate the effect of the din of applause in encouraging him in his self-suggestion. The cheers of so great a crowd, as Erasmus remarked in a letter to Melanchthon, might well have turned the head even of the humblest man. What anchor could have held the bark exposed to such a storm? Outbursts such as the following, to which Luther gave vent under the influence of the deafening ovation, were only to be expected of such a man as he, when he had once cut himself adrift from the Church: “God has now given judgment ... and, contrary to the expectation of the whole world, has brought things to such a pass.... The position of the Pope grows daily worse, that we may extol the work of God herein.”[314]Under the magic influence of the unhoped-for growth of his movement of revolt, he declared it could only be due to a higher power, “which so disposed things that even the gates of hell were unable to prevent them.” Not he, but “another man, drives the wheel.” It is as clear as day that no man could, single-handed, have achieved so much, and, by “mere word of mouth,” done more harm to the Pope, the bishops, priests and monks than all worldly powers hitherto.[315]Christ was working for him so strenuously, so he declares in allseriousness, that he might well calmly await His complete victory over Antichrist; for this reason there was really no need to trouble about the ecclesiastical organisation of the new Church, or to think of all the things it would otherwise have been necessary for him to remember.His mere success was not the only Divine witness in his favour; Luther was also of opinion that owing to God’s notable working, signs and wonders had taken place in plenty in confirmation of the new teaching; such Divine wonders, however, must not be “thrown to the winds.”[316]He seems, nevertheless, to have had at one time the intention of collecting and publishing these miracles.[317]In short, “the first-fruits of the Grace of God,” he says, have come upon us; in these he was unwilling that later teachers, who differed from him, should be allowed to participate.[318]Was not the guidance of Christ also plainly visible in the fact that he, the proclaimer of His Word, had been delivered from so many ambushes on the part of the enemies who lay in wait for him? Such a thought lay at the root of his words to his pupil Mathesius: There was no doubt that poison had frequently been administered to him, but “an important personage had been heard to say, that none had any effect on him.” On one occasion, however, when an attempt had been made to poison him, He “Who said, ‘If they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them,’ blessed him, and preserved him then and afterwards from all mischief.”[319]“I also believe,” Luther once said, according to Bindseil’s Latin “Colloquia,” that “my pulpit-chair and cushion were frequently poisoned, yet God preserved me.”[320]Similar words are recorded in the Diary of Cordatus.[321]This accounts for the strange tales which grew up amongst his pupils and followers of how “God Almighty had always preserved him in a wonderful manner,” of how He “had affrighted the knaves” who sought his life, and so forth, of which the early editions of Luther’s Works have so much to say.Among the characteristics most highly extolled by his earliest followers as exemplifying his mission must be instanced, first, his inflexible courage, amounting frequently to foolhardiness, in the accomplishment of his set task, viz. the establishing of the Evangel and the destruction of Popery; secondly, his extraordinary capacity for work and the perseverance of which he gave such signal proof in his literary undertakings; thirdly, his entire disregard for temporal advantages, which he himself held up as an example to those of the evangelical preachers whose worldliness had become a reproach to the Lutheran cause.Very strange and remarkable is the connection between Luther’s mysticism and the simple and homely view he took of life; the pleasure with which he welcomed everything good which came in his way—so far as it was free from any trace of Popery—the kindly, practical turn of his manner of thinking and acting when among his own people, and that love for humour and good cheer which so strikingly contrasts with the puritanical behaviour of his opponents, the Anabaptists and fanatics.To reconcile his mysticism with habits at first blush so divergent would present quite a problem in itself were we not to take into account the fact, that homeliness and humour had been his from the very beginning, whereas his mysticism was a later growth, always to some extent alien to his character. His mysticism he carefully confined to what related to his supposed Divine mission, though at times he does indeed seem to extend indefinitely the range of this mission. Yet, when the duties of his office had cost him pain or tried his temper, he was ever glad to return to the realities of life, and to seek relief in social intercourse or in his family circle.When it was a question of the working of miracles by the heaven-sent messenger, he was of too practical a turn of mind to appeal to anything but the ostensible tokens of the Divine favour worked around him and on his behalf in proof of the truth of the new Evangel. He carefully avoided attributing any miracles to his own powers, even when assisted by Divine grace, though, occasionally, he seems to imply that, were the need to arise, he might well work wonders by the power of God, were he only to ask it of Him. With the question of miracles and predictionsas proofs of Luther’s Divine mission we shall deal later (p. 153 ff.).While on the one hand Luther’s views of miracles and prophecies witness to an error which was not without effect on his persuasion of his Divine mission, on the other his pseudo-mystic notion of his special calling led him superstitiously to see in chance events of history either the extraordinary confirmation of his mission or the celestial condemnation of Popery.We know that Luther not only shared the superstitions of his contemporaries, but also defended them with all the weight of his great name and literary talents.[322]When at Vienna, in January, 1520, something unusual was perceived in the sky, he at once referred it to “his tragedy,” as he had done even previously in similar cases. He also expressed the wish that he himself might be favoured with some such sign. The noisy spirits which had formerly disturbed people had, he believed, been reduced in number throughout the world solely owing to his Evangel. The omnipotence of the devil and the evil he worked on men was, so he thought, to be restrained only by the power of that Word which had again been made known to the world, thanks to his preaching.[323]It was his intention to publish an account of the demoniacal happenings which had taken place in his day and which confirmed his mission; he was only prevented from doing this by want of time.[324]To astrology, unlike Melanchthon, he ever showed himself averse.Another element which loomed large in his persuasion that he was a prophet was his so-called “temptations,” i.e. the mental troubles, which, so he thought, were caused by the devil and which, coinciding as they often did with other sufferings, were sometimes the cause of long fits of misery and dejection.[325]These temptations in their most extreme form Luther compared with the death-agony. His extraordinary experiences, of which he never understood the pathological cause, were regarded by him as God’s own testimony to his election. His conviction was that, by imposing on him these pangs of hell, God was cleansing him for the grand task assigned to him, even as He had done with other favoured souls in the past. When plunged in the abyss of such sufferings he felt like St. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, who likewise was buffeted by Satan (vol. i., p. 381 f.), and whom he would fain have emulated in his “revelations” of the Divine mysteries. Only in the sequel, however, will it be possible to describe Luther’s pathology for the benefit of those to whom it may be of interest.All his troubles, whether due to doubt and sadness or to the fury of foes stirred up by Satan against him, he utilised, so he tells us, as an incentive to immerse himself ever more and more in the study of Holy Scripture, to cultivate the understanding bestowed upon him, and to seek its practical applications. “My theology was not all learnt in a day; I was obliged to explore deeper and deeper to acquire it. My temptations helped me, for it is impossible to understand Holy Scripture without experience and temptations. This is what the fanatics and unruly spirits lack, viz. that capital gainsayer the devil, who alone can teach a man this. St. Paul had a devil, who beat him with his fists and drove him by the way of temptation diligently to study Holy Scripture. I have had the Pope, the Universities and all the scholars, and, behind them all, the devil, hanging round my neck: they drove me to the Bible and made me read it until at length I reached the right understanding of it. Unless we have such a devil, we remain mere speculative theologians, for whose precious imaginings the world is not much better.”[326]This casual saying of Luther’s gives us a good glimpse into his customary process of thought when in presence of troubles and temptations, great or small.The above passage, moreover, agrees with many similar statements of his, inasmuch as, far from ascribing his doctrine to any actual revelation, he makes its discovery to result from effort on his part, under the guidance of a higher illumination. Luther, less than any other, could scarcelyhave been unconscious of the gradual change in his views, more particularly at the outset of his career as Evangelist and prophet; at the very least it was clear that, in the earlier period of his higher mission, he had taught much that was borrowed from Popery and which he discarded only later; at that time, as he puts it, he was still “besotted with Popery.”Periodic Upheaval of Luther’s Idea of his Divine Mission.Luther’s consciousness of his Divine mission found expression with varying degrees of intensity at different periods of his life.At certain junctures, notably when historic events were impending, it was apt to burst forth, producing in him effects of a character almost terrifying. Such was the case, for instance, in the days which immediately preceded and followed the proclamation of the Bull of Excommunication. At that time it seemed as though every spirit of revolt had entered into him to use him as a tool for defying the authority of the Church. Such was the depth of his persuasion, that he, the excommunicate, was carried away to proclaim his unassailable prophetic rights in tones of the utmost conviction.Towards the end of his stay at the Wartburg and during the first period of his struggle with the Anabaptists at Wittenberg, we again hear him insisting on his own exalted mission; owing, however, to the mystic illumination of which the fanatics boasted, his claims are now based, not so much on mystical considerations, as on the “outward Word,” whose authentic representative he had, by his works, proved himself to be.The loneliness and gloom of the Wartburg and his “diabolical” experiences there doubtless helped to convince him yet more of the reality of his mission. The ensuing struggle with those of the innovators who differed from him and even threatened to oust him, acted as a further stimulus and aroused his powers of resistance to the utmost. Nor must we forget the threatening attitude of the Imperial authorities at Nuremberg, whom he was resolved to oppose with the greatest determination; only by impressing on his followers that he was something more than humanwould it be possible for him successfully to hold in check the hostility of Emperor and Princes. The supposed world-wide success of his venture also dazed him at this critical juncture, a fact which further elucidates the situation.Triumphantly he cries: “The Lord has already begun to mock at Satan and his slaves. Satan is in truth vanquished, and the Pope, too, with all his abominations! Now our only concern is the soap-bubble which has swelled to such alarming dimensions [the Nuremberg menace]. We believe in Christ, the Son of God, believe in His dominion over life and death. Whom then shall we fear? The first-fruits of victory have already fallen to us; we rejoice at the overthrow of the Papal tyranny, whereas formerly Kings and Princes were content to submit to its oppression; how much easier will it be to vanquish and despise the Princes themselves!”“If Christ assures us,” he continues in this same letter, one of the first dispatched after his “Patmos” at the Wartburg, “that the Father has placed all things under His feet, it is certain that He lieth not; ‘all things’ must also comprise the mighty ones assembled at Nuremberg, not to speak of that Dresden bubble [Duke George of Saxony]. Let them therefore set about deposing Christ. We, however, will calmly look on while the Father Almighty preserves His Son at His right hand from the face and the tail of these smoking firebrands” (Isa. vii. 4). Should a rising or a tumult among the people ensue “which cannot be suppressed by force, then that will be the Lord’s own work; He conceals the danger from the sight of the Princes; and, owing to their blindness and rebellion, He will work such things that methinks all Germany will be deluged with blood. We shall ‘set ourselves like a hedge before God in favour of the land and the people’ (Ezek. xxii. 30), in this day of His great wrath, wherefore do you and your people pray for us.”These words were addressed to an old Augustinian friend to whom he showed himself undisguisedly and in his true colours. In the same letter he has it that he considers it quite certain that Carlstadt, Gabriel Zwilling and the fanatical Anabaptists were preaching without any real call, in fact, against God’s will. To himself he applies the words of our Redeemer: “He Whom God has sent speaketh the words of God” (John iii. 34), and “He that seeketh the glory of Him that sent Him is true” (John vii. 18). Fully convinced of the Divine inspiration and compulsion he exclaims: “For this reason did I yield to necessity and return [from the Wartburg], viz. that I might, if God wills, put an end to this devils’ uproar” (of the fanatics).[327]If Luther sought to show the fanatics that their fruits bore witness against them and their doctrine, it is worthy of note that Staupitz, his former Superior, about this very time, confronted Luther with the disastrous fruits of his action, in order to dissuade him from the course he was pursuing. Staupitz, who so far had been his patron, had grown apprehensive of the character of the movement. His warning, however, only acted as oil on the flame of the enthusiasm then surging up in Luther. In his reply, dated in May, 1522, we find the real Luther, the prophet full of his own great plans: “You write that my undertaking is praised [by discreditable people], and by those who frequent houses of ill-fame, and that much scandal has been given by my latest writings. I am not surprised at this, neither am I apprehensive. It is certain that we for our part have been careful to proclaim the pure Word without causing any tumult; the good and the bad alike make use of this Word, and this, as you know, we cannot help.... For we do what Christ foretold when He commanded the angels to collect and remove out of His Kingdom all scandals. Father, I cannot do otherwise than destroy the Kingdom of the Pope, the Kingdom of abomination and wickedness together with all its train. God is already doing this without us, without any assistance from us, merely by His Word. The end of this Kingdom is come before the Lord. The matter far exceeds our powers of comprehension.... Great commotion of minds, great scandals and great signs must follow, in view of God’s greatness. But, dear father, I hope this will not trouble you; God’s plan is visible in these things and His mighty hand. You will remember that at the outset everybody thought my undertaking suspicious, doubtful and altogether too bad, and yet it has held the field and will hold its own in spite of your apprehensions; only have patience. Satan feels the smart of his wound, and that is why he rages so greatly and sets all at loggerheads. But Christ Who has begun the work will trample him under foot; and the gates of hell will do their worst, but all in vain.”So perverted an application of the promise solemnly made by Christ to the Church of Peter, that the gates of hell should not prevail against it, had surely never before been heard. Words such as these would even sound incredible did we not learn from the same letter into what a state of nervous excitement the ban and excommunication had plunged him. At Antwerp, Jacob Probst, one of his followers, was to be burned with two of his comrades, and in various localities Luther’s writings, by order of the authorities, were being consigned to the flames. This it was which made him say in his letter: “My death by fire is already under discussion; but I only defy Satan and his myrmidons the more that the day of Christ may be hastened, when an end will be put to Antichrist. Farewell, father, and pray for me.... The Evangel is a scandal to the self-righteous and to all who think themselves wise.”[328]The later occasions on which this peculiar mystic idea asserted itself most strongly and vividly were during the exciting events of the Peasant War of 1525; in 1528, at the time his Evangel was in danger from the Empire, while he was tormented within; his sojourn in the fortress of Coburg during the much-dreaded Diet of Augsburg, in 1530, when he again endured profound mental agony; the period of the Schmalkald negotiations, in 1537, when the Council of Trent had already been summoned, while Luther was suffering much from disease; finally, in the last years of his life, accompanied as they were by recurring friction with the various Courts and hostile parties, when a growing bitterness dominated his spirit.In this last period of his career the sense of his Divine mission revived in full force, never again to quit him. His statements concerning his mission now bear a more pessimistic stamp, but he nevertheless holds fast to it and allows nothing to disconcert him by any suspicion of a mistake on his part, nor does he betray any trace of his earlier doubts and misgivings.“We know that it is God’s cause,” he says in 1541 to the Electoral Chancellor Brück: “God has commenced it and carried it through, and He too will finish it! Whoever does not wish to follow us, let him fall to the rear, with the Emperor and the Turk; all the devils shall gain nothing here, let what God wills befall us.”[329]“It annoys me that they should esteem these things [of the Evangel] as though they were secular, Imperial, Turkish or princely matters to be decided and controlled, bestowed and accepted by reason alone. It is a matter which God and the devil with their respective angels must arrange. Whoever does not believe this will do no good in the business.”[330]When the negotiations at Ratisbon seemed to be exposing the timorous Melanchthon to the “snares of Satan,” Luther in his wonted presumptuous fashion wrote to him: “Our cause is not to be controlled by our own action, but only by God’s Providence. The Word progresses, prayer is ardent, hope endures, faith conquers, so that verily we cannot but see it, and might even sleep calmly and feast were we not so carnal; for the words of Moses are also addressed to us: ‘The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace’ (cp. Exod. xiv. 14). It is certainthat the Lord is fighting, that He is slowly and gradually descending from His Throne to the [Last] Judgment which we so anxiously look for. The signs announcing the approaching Judgment are all too numerous.... Hence put away all fear. Be strong and glad and untroubled, for the Lord is near. Let them undertake what they please, the Henrys [he is thinking of Henry of Brunswick, an opponent], the bishops, and likewise the Turks and Satan himself. We are children of the kingdom, and we await and honour Him as our Saviour Whom these Henrys spit upon and crucify anew.”[331]In what frame of mind he then was, and what strange judgments he could pass, is seen even more plainly from what he adds concerning a tract he had just published against Duke Henry of Brunswick.This work, entitled “Wider Hans Worst,” is, in style and matter, an attack of indescribable violence on this Catholic prince and Catholics in general. Yet Luther writes of it to Melanchthon: “I have re-read my book against this devil, and I cannot understand what has happened to make me so restrained. I attribute it to my headache which prevented my mind from being carried away on the wings of the storm.” The “bloodhound and incendiary assassin,” as he calls the Duke, would otherwise have had to listen to a very different song for having compelled Luther to “waste his time on Henry’s devil’s excrement.” That the Duke had been the originator of the appalling number of fires which occurred in the Electorate of Hesse in 1540, both Luther and Melanchthon were firmly convinced. Luther’s readiness to cherish the blackest suspicions, his volcanic rage against Catholics, the pessimism of his reiterated cry: “Let everything fall, stand or sink into ruins, as it pleases; let things take their own course,”[332]form a remarkable accompaniment to the thrilling tones in which he again asserts his consciousness of the fulfilment of his Divine mission.We must here revert to some of Luther’s Statements concerning the triumphant progress of the Evangel and the determined resistance to be offered to all opposing forces—solemn declarations which attain their full meaning only in the light of his idea of his own Divine mission. We give the gist of the passages already quoted in detail elsewhere. These passages, which reek of revolution, are altogether inspired by the glowing idea of his heavenly mission apart from which they are scarcely comprehensible.“If war is to come of it, let it come,” etc. “Princely foes are delivered up to us as a holocaust in order that they maybe rewarded according to their works”; God will “deliver His people even from the fiery furnace of Babylon.”[333]“Let things run on merrily and be prepared for the worst,” “whether it be war or revolt, as God’s anger may decree.”[334]“Let justice take its course even should the whole world fall into ruins.”[335]“It is said, ‘If the Pope fall, Germany will perish.’[336]But what has this to do with me?”“It is God’s Word. Let what cannot stand, fall, and what is not to remain, pass away.” “It is a great thing,” he continues, “that for the sake of the young man [the Divine Redeemer] this Jewish Kingdom and the Divine Service which had been so gloriously instituted and ordered should fall to the ground.” Not Christ alone, he says, had spoken of His work in the same way that he (Luther) did of his own, but St. Paul also, in spite of his grief over the Jews, had, like himself, constantly declared: “The Word is true, else everything must fall into ruins; for He Who sent me and commanded me to preach, will not lie.”[337]His followers recalled his words, that it were better “all churches, convents and foundations throughout the world should be rooted out” than that “even one soul should be seduced by such [Popish] error.”[338]And again: “Are we to forswear the truth?” “Would it be strange were the rulers, the nobles and laity to fall upon the Pope, the bishops, priests and monks and drive them out of the land?” They had brought it upon themselves and it was necessary “to pray for them.”[339]But prayer might not suffice. If no improvement took place, then “a general destruction of all the foundations and convents would be the best reformation.”[340]These outbursts date almost all from the time of the Diet of Augsburg, or that immediately succeeding it. They might, however, be compared with some earlier utterances not one whit less full of fanaticism; for instance, where he says to the Elector, in 1522: “Not only the spiritual but also the secular power must yield to the Evangel, whether willingly or unwillingly”;[341]or the opening sentences of his “Bull of the Evening Feed of our Most Holy Lord the Pope” (1522): “After having had to put up with so many hawkers of bulls, cardinals ... and the countless horde of extortioners and swindlers and knaves whom the Rhine would hardly suffice to drown ...!”[342]A flood of rage and passionate enthusiasm for his mission finds vent in these words: “If they hope ever to exterminate the Turks they must begin with the Pope.”[343]“The Pope drives the whole world from the Christian faith to his devilish lies, so that the Pope’s rule is ten times worse than that of the Turk for both body and soul.”[344]Previous to this, in February, 1519, he reveals in the following words the agitation and ferment going on within him: “I adjure you,” he says to his friend Spalatin, “if you would think aright of the Evangel, not to imagine that such a cause can be fought out without tumults, scandal and rebellion. You cannot make a pen out of a sword, or peace of war. The Word of God is a sword, war, ruin, scandal, destruction, poison and, as we read in the Old Covenant, ‘Like to a bear in the road and a lioness in the wood,’ so it withstands the sons of Ephraim.”[345]No Apostle or Prophet ever laid claim to a Divine authorisation for their preaching in language so violent. Indeed, mere phrases and extracts from his writings scarcely suffice to give a true picture of the intensity of his prepossession for his supposed Divine calling and of his furious hatred of his opponents. It would, in fact, be necessary to read in their entirety certain of his polemical works. That they have not done so is the explanation why so many know only a polished Luther and have scarcely an inkling of the fierceness of the struggle which centred round his consciousnessof a Divine mission, and of the depth of his animosity against those who dared to gainsay him.Nor was this consciousness of his without its effects on those around him. During the long years of his public life, it kindled the passion of thousands and contributed largely to the Peasant Revolt and the unhappy religious wars which followed later. Indirectly it was also productive of disaster for the Empire by forcing it to make terms with the turbulent elements within, and by preventing it from displaying a united front against the Turks and other enemies without. On the other hand, in the case of very many who honestly looked on Luther as a real reformer of the Church, it also served to infuse into them new enthusiasm for what they deemed the Christian cause.Its effect on Luther’s character in later life was such as to make him, in his writings to the German people, rave like a maniac of the different forms of death best suited for Pope and Cardinals, viz. being hanged on the gallows with their tongues torn out, being drowned in the Tyrrhenean Sea, or “flayed alive.”[346]“How my flesh creeps and how my blood boils,” he cries, after one such outburst.[347]If we remember the frenzy with which he carried out his religious enterprise, the high tension at which he ever worked and his inexhaustible source of eloquence, it is easy to fancy ourselves face to face with something more than human. The real nature of the spirit which, throughout Luther’s life, was ever so frantically at work within him, must for ever remain a secret. One eye alone, that of the All-seeing, can pierce these depths. Anxious Catholic contemporaries of Luther’s strongly suspected that they had to deal with one possessed by the evil spirit. This opinion was openly voiced, first by Johann Nathin, Luther’s contemporary at the Erfurt monastery, by Emser, Cochlæus, Dungersheim and certain other early opponents, and then by several others whose testimony will be heard later (vol. iv., xxvii., 1).Catholic contemporaries also urged that his claim to a Divine mission was mere impudence. A simple monk, hitherto quite unknown to the world, so they said, breakshis vows and dares to set himself in opposition to the universal Church. A man, whose repute was not of the best, and who not only lacked any higher attestation, but actually exhibited in his doctrine of evangelical freedom, in the disorderly lives of his followers and in the dissensions promoted by his fanatical and stormy rhetoric, those very signs which our Redeemer had warned His disciples would follow false prophets—such a man, they argued, could surely not be a reformer, but was rather a destroyer, of Christendom; he perceives not that the Church, for all her present abuses and corruption, has nevertheless all down the ages scattered throughout the world the Divine blessings committed to her care by a promise which shall never fail, and that she will soon rise again purer and more beautiful than ever, for the lasting benefit of mankind.Luther, on the contrary, sought to base his claim to a Divine mission on the abuses rampant in Popery, which, he would have it, was altogether under the dominion of the devil and quite beyond redemption.2. His Mission Alleged against the PapistsLuther, subsequent to his apostasy, accustomed himself to speak of Catholicism in a fashion scarcely credible. He did not shrink even from the grossest and most impudent depreciation of the Church of the Popes. His incessant indulgence in such abuse calls for some examination into its nature and the mental state of which it was a product.The Pope and the Papacy.The Roman Curia, Luther repeatedly declared, did not believe one word of all the truths of religion; at the faithful who held fast to Revelation they scoffed and called them good simpletons (“buoni cristiani”); they knew nothing either of the Creed or of the Our Father, and from all the ecclesiastical books put together not as much could be learnt as from one page of Martin Luther’s Catechism.

THE DIVINE MISSION AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS

Whereasthe most zealous of Luther’s earliest pupils and followers outvied one another in depicting their master as the messenger of God, who had come before the world equipped with revelations from on high, the tendency of later Protestantism has been, more and more, to reduce Luther, so to speak, to a merely natural level, and to represent him as a hero indeed, but as one inspired by merely human motives. An earlier generation exalted him to mystical regions, and, being nearer him in point of time and therefore knowing him better, grasped the fact that he was dominated by a certain supernaturalism. Many later and more recent writers, on the other hand, have preferred to square their conception of his personality with their own liberal views on religion. They hail Luther as the champion of free thought and therefore as the founder of modern intellectual life. What he discovered in his struggles with himself by reflection and pious meditation, that, they say, he bequeathed to posterity without insisting upon the immutability of his ideas or claiming for them any infallibility. His only permanent work, his real legacy to posterity, was a negative one, viz. the breach with Popery, which he consummated, thanks to his extraordinary powers.

This is, however, from the religious standpoint, to attenuate Luther’s figure as it appears in history, notwithstanding the tribute paid to his talents.

If he is not the “messenger of God,” whose doctrines, inspired from on high, the world was bound to accept, then he ceases to be Luther, for it was from his supernatural estimate of himself that he drew all his strength and defiance.Force him to quit the dim, mystical heights from which he fancies he exercises his sway, and his claim on the faith of mankind becomes inexplicable and he himself an enigma.

It has been pointed out above, how Luther gradually reached the conviction that he had received his doctrine by a special revelation, with the Divine mission to communicate it to the world and to reform the Church (vol. ii., p. 92 f.). The conviction, that, as he declares, “the Holy Ghost had revealed the Scriptures” to him culminated in that personal assurance of salvation which was suddenly vouchsafed to him in the Tower.[284]

It will repay us to examine more closely the nature of this idea, and its manifestations, now that we have the mature man before us.

The founder of the new Church has reached a period when he no longer scruples to speak of the “revelations” which had been made to him, and which he is compelled to proclaim. “By His Grace,” he says, “God has revealed this doctrine to me.”[285]—“I have it by revelation ... that will I not deny.”[286]Of his mission he assures us: “By God’s revelation I am called to be a sort of antipope”;[287]of his chief dogma, he will have it that “the Holy Ghost bestowed it upon me,”[288]and declares that “under pain of the curse of eternal reprobation” he had been “instructed (‘interminatum’) not to doubt of it in any way.”[289]Of this he solemnly assured the Elector Frederick in a letter written in 1522: “Concerning my cause I would say: Your Electoral Highness is aware, or, if not aware, is hereby apprised of the fact, that I received the Evangel, not from man, but from heavenalone through our Lord Jesus Christ, so that I might well subscribe myself and boast of being a minister and evangelist—as, indeed, I shall do for the future.”[290]

It is because he has received the Word of God direct from on high that he is so firm. “God’s Word,” he cries, “is above everything to me; I have the Divine Majesty on my side, therefore I care not in the least though a thousand Augustines, or a thousand Harry-Churches [Henry VIII. of England was then still a Catholic] should be against me; I am quite certain that the true Church holds fast with me to God’s Word, and leaves it to the Harry-Churches to depend on the words of men.”[291]

There are many passages in which he merely claims to have been enlightened in his ruminations and labours and thus led to embrace the real, saving truth; less frequently do we hear of any actual, sudden inspiration from above. Where he does claim this most distinctly is in the matter of the discovery of his chief doctrine, viz. assurance of salvation by justifying faith, vouchsafed to him in the Tower of the Wittenberg monastery. The fact that his mode of expression varies may be explained not merely by his own involuntary wavering, but by the very difficulty of imparting his favourite doctrine to others. His frame of mind, outward circumstances and the character of his hearers or readers were the cause of his choice of words. With his friends, for instance, more particularly the younger ones, and likewise in his sermons at Wittenberg, he was fond of laying stress on what he had once said to the lawyers when they molested him with Canon Law: “They shall respect our teaching, which is the Word of God spoken by the Holy Ghost through our lips.”[292]When speaking to larger audiences, on the other hand, he does not as a rule claim more than a gradual, inner enlightenment by God, which indeed partakes of the nature of a revelation, but to which he was led by his work and study and inward experience. In the presence of the fanatics he became, after 1524, more cautious in his claims, owing to the similar ones made on their own behalf by these sectarians.

Yet the idea of an assurance born of God lies at the bottom of all his statements.

He worked himself into this belief until it became part of his nature.[293]He had to face many doubts and scruples, but he overcame them, and, in the latter years of his life, we hear little of any such. His struggle with these doubts, which clearly betray the faulty basis of his conviction, will be dealt with elsewhere.[294]

“I am certain and am determined to feel so.” Expressions such as this are not seldom to be met with in Luther’s letters and writings.[295]

An almost appalling strength of will lurks behind such assurances. Indeed, what impels him seems to savour more of self-suggestion than of inward experience. To the objections brought forward by his adversaries he frequently enough merely opposes his “certainty”; behind this he endeavours to conceal the defects of his proofs from Scripture, and his inability to reply to the reasons urged against him. His determination to find conviction constitutes one of Luther’s salient psychological characteristics; of the Titanic strength at his disposal he made proof first and foremost in his own case.

Luther also succeeded in inducing in himself a pseudo-mystic mood in which he fancied himself acting in everything conformably with a Divine mission, everywhere specially guided and protected as beseemed a messenger of God.

For instance, he says that he wrote the pamphlet against the seditious peasants in obedience to a Divine command; “therefore my little book is right and will always be so, though all the world should be incensed at it.”[296]

“It is the Lord Who has done this,” he had declared of the Peasant Rising when he recognised in it elements favourable to his cause; “It is the Lord Who has done this and Who conceals these menaces and dangers from the eyes of the Princes, and will even bring it about Himself by means of their blindness and violence.” That the Princes arethreatened with destruction, that “I firmly believe the Spirit proclaims through me.”[297]

Later on he was no less sure that he could foresee in the Spirit the coming outbreak of a religious war in Germany; only the prayers which he—who had the Divine interests so much at heart—offered, could avail to stave off the war; at least the delay was mainly the result of this prayer: “I am assured that God really hearkens to my prayer, and I know that so long as I live there will be no war in Germany.”

Never does he tire of declaring that the misfortunes and deaths which his foes have to deplore are the result of the intervention of heaven on behalf of his cause.[298]He was convinced that he had repeatedly been cured in sickness and saved from death by Christ, by Him, as he says in 1534, “in Whose faith I commenced all this and carried it through, to the admiration even of my opponents.”[299]He, “one of the Apostles and Evangelists of Germany, is,” so he proclaims in 1526 in a pamphlet, “a man delivered over to death and only preserved in life by a wonder and in defiance of the wrath of the devil and his saints.”[300]

In February, 1520, he speaks of the intimation he has received of a great storm impending, were God not to place some hindrance in the way of Satan. “I have seen Satan’s cunning plans for my destruction and that of many others. Doubtless the Divine Word can never be administered without confusion, tumult and danger. It is a word of boundless majesty, it works great things and is wonderful on high.” This was to be his only guide in his undertaking. He was compelled, so he declared on the same occasion, “to leave the whole matter to God, to resign himself to His guidance and to look on while wind and waves make the ship their plaything.”[301]

He frequently repeats later that his professorship at the University had been bestowed upon him by a Divine dispensation and against his will; whereas others werehonoured for their academic labours, he complains to Spalatin of being persecuted; “I teach against my will and yet I have to endure evil things.” “What I now do and have done, I was compelled to do.” “I have enough sins on my conscience without incurring the unpardonable one of being unfaithful to my office, of refraining from scourging evil and of neglecting the truth to the detriment of so many thousand souls.”[302]—At the time when the Disputation at Leipzig was preparing, he tells the same confidant that the matter must be left to God: “I do not desire that it should happen according to our designs, otherwise I would prefer to desist from it altogether.” Spalatin must not desire to see the matter judged and settled according to human wisdom, but should remember that we know nothing of “God’s plans.”[303]

Everything had befallen him in accordance with God’s design. It was in accordance therewith, nay, “at the command of God,” that he had become a monk, so at least he says later. This, too, was his reason for giving up the office in choir and the recitation of the Breviary. “Our Lord God dragged me by force from the canonical hours, anno 1520.”[304]His marriage likewise was the direct result of God’s plan. “The Lord suddenly flung me into matrimony in a wonderful way while my thoughts were set in quite another direction.”[305]At an earlier date he had, so he said, defended the theses of his Resolutions only “because God compelled him to advance all these propositions.”[306]

His first encounter with Dr. Eck took place, so he was persuaded, “at God’s behest.”[307]“God takes good care that I should not be idle.”[308]It is God Who “calls and compels him” to return to Wittenberg after his stay at the Wartburg.[309]—It is not surprising, then, that he also attributes to God’s doing the increase in the number of his friends and followers.

The success of his efforts to bring about a great falling away from the Catholic Church he regarded as a clear Divine confirmation of his mission, so that “no higher proof or miracle was needed.”[310]Even the disturbance and tumult which resulted bore witness in his favour, since Christ says: “I am come to send a sword.” All around him prevailed “discord, revolt and uproar,”[311]because, forsooth, the Gospel was there at work; the calm, unquestioned sovereignty of Popery within its own boundaries was a sure sign of its being the devil’s own.[312]“Did I not meet with curses, I should not believe that my cause was from God.”[313]

It is evident from these and other like statements how greatly his fame, the increase of his followers and his unexpected success engrossed and intoxicated him. In judging of him we must not under-estimate the effect of the din of applause in encouraging him in his self-suggestion. The cheers of so great a crowd, as Erasmus remarked in a letter to Melanchthon, might well have turned the head even of the humblest man. What anchor could have held the bark exposed to such a storm? Outbursts such as the following, to which Luther gave vent under the influence of the deafening ovation, were only to be expected of such a man as he, when he had once cut himself adrift from the Church: “God has now given judgment ... and, contrary to the expectation of the whole world, has brought things to such a pass.... The position of the Pope grows daily worse, that we may extol the work of God herein.”[314]Under the magic influence of the unhoped-for growth of his movement of revolt, he declared it could only be due to a higher power, “which so disposed things that even the gates of hell were unable to prevent them.” Not he, but “another man, drives the wheel.” It is as clear as day that no man could, single-handed, have achieved so much, and, by “mere word of mouth,” done more harm to the Pope, the bishops, priests and monks than all worldly powers hitherto.[315]Christ was working for him so strenuously, so he declares in allseriousness, that he might well calmly await His complete victory over Antichrist; for this reason there was really no need to trouble about the ecclesiastical organisation of the new Church, or to think of all the things it would otherwise have been necessary for him to remember.

His mere success was not the only Divine witness in his favour; Luther was also of opinion that owing to God’s notable working, signs and wonders had taken place in plenty in confirmation of the new teaching; such Divine wonders, however, must not be “thrown to the winds.”[316]He seems, nevertheless, to have had at one time the intention of collecting and publishing these miracles.[317]

In short, “the first-fruits of the Grace of God,” he says, have come upon us; in these he was unwilling that later teachers, who differed from him, should be allowed to participate.[318]

Was not the guidance of Christ also plainly visible in the fact that he, the proclaimer of His Word, had been delivered from so many ambushes on the part of the enemies who lay in wait for him? Such a thought lay at the root of his words to his pupil Mathesius: There was no doubt that poison had frequently been administered to him, but “an important personage had been heard to say, that none had any effect on him.” On one occasion, however, when an attempt had been made to poison him, He “Who said, ‘If they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them,’ blessed him, and preserved him then and afterwards from all mischief.”[319]“I also believe,” Luther once said, according to Bindseil’s Latin “Colloquia,” that “my pulpit-chair and cushion were frequently poisoned, yet God preserved me.”[320]Similar words are recorded in the Diary of Cordatus.[321]This accounts for the strange tales which grew up amongst his pupils and followers of how “God Almighty had always preserved him in a wonderful manner,” of how He “had affrighted the knaves” who sought his life, and so forth, of which the early editions of Luther’s Works have so much to say.

Among the characteristics most highly extolled by his earliest followers as exemplifying his mission must be instanced, first, his inflexible courage, amounting frequently to foolhardiness, in the accomplishment of his set task, viz. the establishing of the Evangel and the destruction of Popery; secondly, his extraordinary capacity for work and the perseverance of which he gave such signal proof in his literary undertakings; thirdly, his entire disregard for temporal advantages, which he himself held up as an example to those of the evangelical preachers whose worldliness had become a reproach to the Lutheran cause.

Very strange and remarkable is the connection between Luther’s mysticism and the simple and homely view he took of life; the pleasure with which he welcomed everything good which came in his way—so far as it was free from any trace of Popery—the kindly, practical turn of his manner of thinking and acting when among his own people, and that love for humour and good cheer which so strikingly contrasts with the puritanical behaviour of his opponents, the Anabaptists and fanatics.

To reconcile his mysticism with habits at first blush so divergent would present quite a problem in itself were we not to take into account the fact, that homeliness and humour had been his from the very beginning, whereas his mysticism was a later growth, always to some extent alien to his character. His mysticism he carefully confined to what related to his supposed Divine mission, though at times he does indeed seem to extend indefinitely the range of this mission. Yet, when the duties of his office had cost him pain or tried his temper, he was ever glad to return to the realities of life, and to seek relief in social intercourse or in his family circle.

When it was a question of the working of miracles by the heaven-sent messenger, he was of too practical a turn of mind to appeal to anything but the ostensible tokens of the Divine favour worked around him and on his behalf in proof of the truth of the new Evangel. He carefully avoided attributing any miracles to his own powers, even when assisted by Divine grace, though, occasionally, he seems to imply that, were the need to arise, he might well work wonders by the power of God, were he only to ask it of Him. With the question of miracles and predictionsas proofs of Luther’s Divine mission we shall deal later (p. 153 ff.).

While on the one hand Luther’s views of miracles and prophecies witness to an error which was not without effect on his persuasion of his Divine mission, on the other his pseudo-mystic notion of his special calling led him superstitiously to see in chance events of history either the extraordinary confirmation of his mission or the celestial condemnation of Popery.

We know that Luther not only shared the superstitions of his contemporaries, but also defended them with all the weight of his great name and literary talents.[322]When at Vienna, in January, 1520, something unusual was perceived in the sky, he at once referred it to “his tragedy,” as he had done even previously in similar cases. He also expressed the wish that he himself might be favoured with some such sign. The noisy spirits which had formerly disturbed people had, he believed, been reduced in number throughout the world solely owing to his Evangel. The omnipotence of the devil and the evil he worked on men was, so he thought, to be restrained only by the power of that Word which had again been made known to the world, thanks to his preaching.[323]It was his intention to publish an account of the demoniacal happenings which had taken place in his day and which confirmed his mission; he was only prevented from doing this by want of time.[324]To astrology, unlike Melanchthon, he ever showed himself averse.

Another element which loomed large in his persuasion that he was a prophet was his so-called “temptations,” i.e. the mental troubles, which, so he thought, were caused by the devil and which, coinciding as they often did with other sufferings, were sometimes the cause of long fits of misery and dejection.[325]

These temptations in their most extreme form Luther compared with the death-agony. His extraordinary experiences, of which he never understood the pathological cause, were regarded by him as God’s own testimony to his election. His conviction was that, by imposing on him these pangs of hell, God was cleansing him for the grand task assigned to him, even as He had done with other favoured souls in the past. When plunged in the abyss of such sufferings he felt like St. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, who likewise was buffeted by Satan (vol. i., p. 381 f.), and whom he would fain have emulated in his “revelations” of the Divine mysteries. Only in the sequel, however, will it be possible to describe Luther’s pathology for the benefit of those to whom it may be of interest.

All his troubles, whether due to doubt and sadness or to the fury of foes stirred up by Satan against him, he utilised, so he tells us, as an incentive to immerse himself ever more and more in the study of Holy Scripture, to cultivate the understanding bestowed upon him, and to seek its practical applications. “My theology was not all learnt in a day; I was obliged to explore deeper and deeper to acquire it. My temptations helped me, for it is impossible to understand Holy Scripture without experience and temptations. This is what the fanatics and unruly spirits lack, viz. that capital gainsayer the devil, who alone can teach a man this. St. Paul had a devil, who beat him with his fists and drove him by the way of temptation diligently to study Holy Scripture. I have had the Pope, the Universities and all the scholars, and, behind them all, the devil, hanging round my neck: they drove me to the Bible and made me read it until at length I reached the right understanding of it. Unless we have such a devil, we remain mere speculative theologians, for whose precious imaginings the world is not much better.”[326]This casual saying of Luther’s gives us a good glimpse into his customary process of thought when in presence of troubles and temptations, great or small.

The above passage, moreover, agrees with many similar statements of his, inasmuch as, far from ascribing his doctrine to any actual revelation, he makes its discovery to result from effort on his part, under the guidance of a higher illumination. Luther, less than any other, could scarcelyhave been unconscious of the gradual change in his views, more particularly at the outset of his career as Evangelist and prophet; at the very least it was clear that, in the earlier period of his higher mission, he had taught much that was borrowed from Popery and which he discarded only later; at that time, as he puts it, he was still “besotted with Popery.”

Luther’s consciousness of his Divine mission found expression with varying degrees of intensity at different periods of his life.

At certain junctures, notably when historic events were impending, it was apt to burst forth, producing in him effects of a character almost terrifying. Such was the case, for instance, in the days which immediately preceded and followed the proclamation of the Bull of Excommunication. At that time it seemed as though every spirit of revolt had entered into him to use him as a tool for defying the authority of the Church. Such was the depth of his persuasion, that he, the excommunicate, was carried away to proclaim his unassailable prophetic rights in tones of the utmost conviction.

Towards the end of his stay at the Wartburg and during the first period of his struggle with the Anabaptists at Wittenberg, we again hear him insisting on his own exalted mission; owing, however, to the mystic illumination of which the fanatics boasted, his claims are now based, not so much on mystical considerations, as on the “outward Word,” whose authentic representative he had, by his works, proved himself to be.

The loneliness and gloom of the Wartburg and his “diabolical” experiences there doubtless helped to convince him yet more of the reality of his mission. The ensuing struggle with those of the innovators who differed from him and even threatened to oust him, acted as a further stimulus and aroused his powers of resistance to the utmost. Nor must we forget the threatening attitude of the Imperial authorities at Nuremberg, whom he was resolved to oppose with the greatest determination; only by impressing on his followers that he was something more than humanwould it be possible for him successfully to hold in check the hostility of Emperor and Princes. The supposed world-wide success of his venture also dazed him at this critical juncture, a fact which further elucidates the situation.

Triumphantly he cries: “The Lord has already begun to mock at Satan and his slaves. Satan is in truth vanquished, and the Pope, too, with all his abominations! Now our only concern is the soap-bubble which has swelled to such alarming dimensions [the Nuremberg menace]. We believe in Christ, the Son of God, believe in His dominion over life and death. Whom then shall we fear? The first-fruits of victory have already fallen to us; we rejoice at the overthrow of the Papal tyranny, whereas formerly Kings and Princes were content to submit to its oppression; how much easier will it be to vanquish and despise the Princes themselves!”“If Christ assures us,” he continues in this same letter, one of the first dispatched after his “Patmos” at the Wartburg, “that the Father has placed all things under His feet, it is certain that He lieth not; ‘all things’ must also comprise the mighty ones assembled at Nuremberg, not to speak of that Dresden bubble [Duke George of Saxony]. Let them therefore set about deposing Christ. We, however, will calmly look on while the Father Almighty preserves His Son at His right hand from the face and the tail of these smoking firebrands” (Isa. vii. 4). Should a rising or a tumult among the people ensue “which cannot be suppressed by force, then that will be the Lord’s own work; He conceals the danger from the sight of the Princes; and, owing to their blindness and rebellion, He will work such things that methinks all Germany will be deluged with blood. We shall ‘set ourselves like a hedge before God in favour of the land and the people’ (Ezek. xxii. 30), in this day of His great wrath, wherefore do you and your people pray for us.”These words were addressed to an old Augustinian friend to whom he showed himself undisguisedly and in his true colours. In the same letter he has it that he considers it quite certain that Carlstadt, Gabriel Zwilling and the fanatical Anabaptists were preaching without any real call, in fact, against God’s will. To himself he applies the words of our Redeemer: “He Whom God has sent speaketh the words of God” (John iii. 34), and “He that seeketh the glory of Him that sent Him is true” (John vii. 18). Fully convinced of the Divine inspiration and compulsion he exclaims: “For this reason did I yield to necessity and return [from the Wartburg], viz. that I might, if God wills, put an end to this devils’ uproar” (of the fanatics).[327]If Luther sought to show the fanatics that their fruits bore witness against them and their doctrine, it is worthy of note that Staupitz, his former Superior, about this very time, confronted Luther with the disastrous fruits of his action, in order to dissuade him from the course he was pursuing. Staupitz, who so far had been his patron, had grown apprehensive of the character of the movement. His warning, however, only acted as oil on the flame of the enthusiasm then surging up in Luther. In his reply, dated in May, 1522, we find the real Luther, the prophet full of his own great plans: “You write that my undertaking is praised [by discreditable people], and by those who frequent houses of ill-fame, and that much scandal has been given by my latest writings. I am not surprised at this, neither am I apprehensive. It is certain that we for our part have been careful to proclaim the pure Word without causing any tumult; the good and the bad alike make use of this Word, and this, as you know, we cannot help.... For we do what Christ foretold when He commanded the angels to collect and remove out of His Kingdom all scandals. Father, I cannot do otherwise than destroy the Kingdom of the Pope, the Kingdom of abomination and wickedness together with all its train. God is already doing this without us, without any assistance from us, merely by His Word. The end of this Kingdom is come before the Lord. The matter far exceeds our powers of comprehension.... Great commotion of minds, great scandals and great signs must follow, in view of God’s greatness. But, dear father, I hope this will not trouble you; God’s plan is visible in these things and His mighty hand. You will remember that at the outset everybody thought my undertaking suspicious, doubtful and altogether too bad, and yet it has held the field and will hold its own in spite of your apprehensions; only have patience. Satan feels the smart of his wound, and that is why he rages so greatly and sets all at loggerheads. But Christ Who has begun the work will trample him under foot; and the gates of hell will do their worst, but all in vain.”So perverted an application of the promise solemnly made by Christ to the Church of Peter, that the gates of hell should not prevail against it, had surely never before been heard. Words such as these would even sound incredible did we not learn from the same letter into what a state of nervous excitement the ban and excommunication had plunged him. At Antwerp, Jacob Probst, one of his followers, was to be burned with two of his comrades, and in various localities Luther’s writings, by order of the authorities, were being consigned to the flames. This it was which made him say in his letter: “My death by fire is already under discussion; but I only defy Satan and his myrmidons the more that the day of Christ may be hastened, when an end will be put to Antichrist. Farewell, father, and pray for me.... The Evangel is a scandal to the self-righteous and to all who think themselves wise.”[328]

Triumphantly he cries: “The Lord has already begun to mock at Satan and his slaves. Satan is in truth vanquished, and the Pope, too, with all his abominations! Now our only concern is the soap-bubble which has swelled to such alarming dimensions [the Nuremberg menace]. We believe in Christ, the Son of God, believe in His dominion over life and death. Whom then shall we fear? The first-fruits of victory have already fallen to us; we rejoice at the overthrow of the Papal tyranny, whereas formerly Kings and Princes were content to submit to its oppression; how much easier will it be to vanquish and despise the Princes themselves!”

“If Christ assures us,” he continues in this same letter, one of the first dispatched after his “Patmos” at the Wartburg, “that the Father has placed all things under His feet, it is certain that He lieth not; ‘all things’ must also comprise the mighty ones assembled at Nuremberg, not to speak of that Dresden bubble [Duke George of Saxony]. Let them therefore set about deposing Christ. We, however, will calmly look on while the Father Almighty preserves His Son at His right hand from the face and the tail of these smoking firebrands” (Isa. vii. 4). Should a rising or a tumult among the people ensue “which cannot be suppressed by force, then that will be the Lord’s own work; He conceals the danger from the sight of the Princes; and, owing to their blindness and rebellion, He will work such things that methinks all Germany will be deluged with blood. We shall ‘set ourselves like a hedge before God in favour of the land and the people’ (Ezek. xxii. 30), in this day of His great wrath, wherefore do you and your people pray for us.”

These words were addressed to an old Augustinian friend to whom he showed himself undisguisedly and in his true colours. In the same letter he has it that he considers it quite certain that Carlstadt, Gabriel Zwilling and the fanatical Anabaptists were preaching without any real call, in fact, against God’s will. To himself he applies the words of our Redeemer: “He Whom God has sent speaketh the words of God” (John iii. 34), and “He that seeketh the glory of Him that sent Him is true” (John vii. 18). Fully convinced of the Divine inspiration and compulsion he exclaims: “For this reason did I yield to necessity and return [from the Wartburg], viz. that I might, if God wills, put an end to this devils’ uproar” (of the fanatics).[327]

If Luther sought to show the fanatics that their fruits bore witness against them and their doctrine, it is worthy of note that Staupitz, his former Superior, about this very time, confronted Luther with the disastrous fruits of his action, in order to dissuade him from the course he was pursuing. Staupitz, who so far had been his patron, had grown apprehensive of the character of the movement. His warning, however, only acted as oil on the flame of the enthusiasm then surging up in Luther. In his reply, dated in May, 1522, we find the real Luther, the prophet full of his own great plans: “You write that my undertaking is praised [by discreditable people], and by those who frequent houses of ill-fame, and that much scandal has been given by my latest writings. I am not surprised at this, neither am I apprehensive. It is certain that we for our part have been careful to proclaim the pure Word without causing any tumult; the good and the bad alike make use of this Word, and this, as you know, we cannot help.... For we do what Christ foretold when He commanded the angels to collect and remove out of His Kingdom all scandals. Father, I cannot do otherwise than destroy the Kingdom of the Pope, the Kingdom of abomination and wickedness together with all its train. God is already doing this without us, without any assistance from us, merely by His Word. The end of this Kingdom is come before the Lord. The matter far exceeds our powers of comprehension.... Great commotion of minds, great scandals and great signs must follow, in view of God’s greatness. But, dear father, I hope this will not trouble you; God’s plan is visible in these things and His mighty hand. You will remember that at the outset everybody thought my undertaking suspicious, doubtful and altogether too bad, and yet it has held the field and will hold its own in spite of your apprehensions; only have patience. Satan feels the smart of his wound, and that is why he rages so greatly and sets all at loggerheads. But Christ Who has begun the work will trample him under foot; and the gates of hell will do their worst, but all in vain.”

So perverted an application of the promise solemnly made by Christ to the Church of Peter, that the gates of hell should not prevail against it, had surely never before been heard. Words such as these would even sound incredible did we not learn from the same letter into what a state of nervous excitement the ban and excommunication had plunged him. At Antwerp, Jacob Probst, one of his followers, was to be burned with two of his comrades, and in various localities Luther’s writings, by order of the authorities, were being consigned to the flames. This it was which made him say in his letter: “My death by fire is already under discussion; but I only defy Satan and his myrmidons the more that the day of Christ may be hastened, when an end will be put to Antichrist. Farewell, father, and pray for me.... The Evangel is a scandal to the self-righteous and to all who think themselves wise.”[328]

The later occasions on which this peculiar mystic idea asserted itself most strongly and vividly were during the exciting events of the Peasant War of 1525; in 1528, at the time his Evangel was in danger from the Empire, while he was tormented within; his sojourn in the fortress of Coburg during the much-dreaded Diet of Augsburg, in 1530, when he again endured profound mental agony; the period of the Schmalkald negotiations, in 1537, when the Council of Trent had already been summoned, while Luther was suffering much from disease; finally, in the last years of his life, accompanied as they were by recurring friction with the various Courts and hostile parties, when a growing bitterness dominated his spirit.

In this last period of his career the sense of his Divine mission revived in full force, never again to quit him. His statements concerning his mission now bear a more pessimistic stamp, but he nevertheless holds fast to it and allows nothing to disconcert him by any suspicion of a mistake on his part, nor does he betray any trace of his earlier doubts and misgivings.

“We know that it is God’s cause,” he says in 1541 to the Electoral Chancellor Brück: “God has commenced it and carried it through, and He too will finish it! Whoever does not wish to follow us, let him fall to the rear, with the Emperor and the Turk; all the devils shall gain nothing here, let what God wills befall us.”[329]“It annoys me that they should esteem these things [of the Evangel] as though they were secular, Imperial, Turkish or princely matters to be decided and controlled, bestowed and accepted by reason alone. It is a matter which God and the devil with their respective angels must arrange. Whoever does not believe this will do no good in the business.”[330]When the negotiations at Ratisbon seemed to be exposing the timorous Melanchthon to the “snares of Satan,” Luther in his wonted presumptuous fashion wrote to him: “Our cause is not to be controlled by our own action, but only by God’s Providence. The Word progresses, prayer is ardent, hope endures, faith conquers, so that verily we cannot but see it, and might even sleep calmly and feast were we not so carnal; for the words of Moses are also addressed to us: ‘The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace’ (cp. Exod. xiv. 14). It is certainthat the Lord is fighting, that He is slowly and gradually descending from His Throne to the [Last] Judgment which we so anxiously look for. The signs announcing the approaching Judgment are all too numerous.... Hence put away all fear. Be strong and glad and untroubled, for the Lord is near. Let them undertake what they please, the Henrys [he is thinking of Henry of Brunswick, an opponent], the bishops, and likewise the Turks and Satan himself. We are children of the kingdom, and we await and honour Him as our Saviour Whom these Henrys spit upon and crucify anew.”[331]In what frame of mind he then was, and what strange judgments he could pass, is seen even more plainly from what he adds concerning a tract he had just published against Duke Henry of Brunswick.This work, entitled “Wider Hans Worst,” is, in style and matter, an attack of indescribable violence on this Catholic prince and Catholics in general. Yet Luther writes of it to Melanchthon: “I have re-read my book against this devil, and I cannot understand what has happened to make me so restrained. I attribute it to my headache which prevented my mind from being carried away on the wings of the storm.” The “bloodhound and incendiary assassin,” as he calls the Duke, would otherwise have had to listen to a very different song for having compelled Luther to “waste his time on Henry’s devil’s excrement.” That the Duke had been the originator of the appalling number of fires which occurred in the Electorate of Hesse in 1540, both Luther and Melanchthon were firmly convinced. Luther’s readiness to cherish the blackest suspicions, his volcanic rage against Catholics, the pessimism of his reiterated cry: “Let everything fall, stand or sink into ruins, as it pleases; let things take their own course,”[332]form a remarkable accompaniment to the thrilling tones in which he again asserts his consciousness of the fulfilment of his Divine mission.

“We know that it is God’s cause,” he says in 1541 to the Electoral Chancellor Brück: “God has commenced it and carried it through, and He too will finish it! Whoever does not wish to follow us, let him fall to the rear, with the Emperor and the Turk; all the devils shall gain nothing here, let what God wills befall us.”[329]

“It annoys me that they should esteem these things [of the Evangel] as though they were secular, Imperial, Turkish or princely matters to be decided and controlled, bestowed and accepted by reason alone. It is a matter which God and the devil with their respective angels must arrange. Whoever does not believe this will do no good in the business.”[330]

When the negotiations at Ratisbon seemed to be exposing the timorous Melanchthon to the “snares of Satan,” Luther in his wonted presumptuous fashion wrote to him: “Our cause is not to be controlled by our own action, but only by God’s Providence. The Word progresses, prayer is ardent, hope endures, faith conquers, so that verily we cannot but see it, and might even sleep calmly and feast were we not so carnal; for the words of Moses are also addressed to us: ‘The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace’ (cp. Exod. xiv. 14). It is certainthat the Lord is fighting, that He is slowly and gradually descending from His Throne to the [Last] Judgment which we so anxiously look for. The signs announcing the approaching Judgment are all too numerous.... Hence put away all fear. Be strong and glad and untroubled, for the Lord is near. Let them undertake what they please, the Henrys [he is thinking of Henry of Brunswick, an opponent], the bishops, and likewise the Turks and Satan himself. We are children of the kingdom, and we await and honour Him as our Saviour Whom these Henrys spit upon and crucify anew.”[331]

In what frame of mind he then was, and what strange judgments he could pass, is seen even more plainly from what he adds concerning a tract he had just published against Duke Henry of Brunswick.

This work, entitled “Wider Hans Worst,” is, in style and matter, an attack of indescribable violence on this Catholic prince and Catholics in general. Yet Luther writes of it to Melanchthon: “I have re-read my book against this devil, and I cannot understand what has happened to make me so restrained. I attribute it to my headache which prevented my mind from being carried away on the wings of the storm.” The “bloodhound and incendiary assassin,” as he calls the Duke, would otherwise have had to listen to a very different song for having compelled Luther to “waste his time on Henry’s devil’s excrement.” That the Duke had been the originator of the appalling number of fires which occurred in the Electorate of Hesse in 1540, both Luther and Melanchthon were firmly convinced. Luther’s readiness to cherish the blackest suspicions, his volcanic rage against Catholics, the pessimism of his reiterated cry: “Let everything fall, stand or sink into ruins, as it pleases; let things take their own course,”[332]form a remarkable accompaniment to the thrilling tones in which he again asserts his consciousness of the fulfilment of his Divine mission.

We must here revert to some of Luther’s Statements concerning the triumphant progress of the Evangel and the determined resistance to be offered to all opposing forces—solemn declarations which attain their full meaning only in the light of his idea of his own Divine mission. We give the gist of the passages already quoted in detail elsewhere. These passages, which reek of revolution, are altogether inspired by the glowing idea of his heavenly mission apart from which they are scarcely comprehensible.

“If war is to come of it, let it come,” etc. “Princely foes are delivered up to us as a holocaust in order that they maybe rewarded according to their works”; God will “deliver His people even from the fiery furnace of Babylon.”[333]

“Let things run on merrily and be prepared for the worst,” “whether it be war or revolt, as God’s anger may decree.”[334]

“Let justice take its course even should the whole world fall into ruins.”[335]

“It is said, ‘If the Pope fall, Germany will perish.’[336]But what has this to do with me?”

“It is God’s Word. Let what cannot stand, fall, and what is not to remain, pass away.” “It is a great thing,” he continues, “that for the sake of the young man [the Divine Redeemer] this Jewish Kingdom and the Divine Service which had been so gloriously instituted and ordered should fall to the ground.” Not Christ alone, he says, had spoken of His work in the same way that he (Luther) did of his own, but St. Paul also, in spite of his grief over the Jews, had, like himself, constantly declared: “The Word is true, else everything must fall into ruins; for He Who sent me and commanded me to preach, will not lie.”[337]

His followers recalled his words, that it were better “all churches, convents and foundations throughout the world should be rooted out” than that “even one soul should be seduced by such [Popish] error.”[338]And again: “Are we to forswear the truth?” “Would it be strange were the rulers, the nobles and laity to fall upon the Pope, the bishops, priests and monks and drive them out of the land?” They had brought it upon themselves and it was necessary “to pray for them.”[339]But prayer might not suffice. If no improvement took place, then “a general destruction of all the foundations and convents would be the best reformation.”[340]

These outbursts date almost all from the time of the Diet of Augsburg, or that immediately succeeding it. They might, however, be compared with some earlier utterances not one whit less full of fanaticism; for instance, where he says to the Elector, in 1522: “Not only the spiritual but also the secular power must yield to the Evangel, whether willingly or unwillingly”;[341]or the opening sentences of his “Bull of the Evening Feed of our Most Holy Lord the Pope” (1522): “After having had to put up with so many hawkers of bulls, cardinals ... and the countless horde of extortioners and swindlers and knaves whom the Rhine would hardly suffice to drown ...!”[342]

A flood of rage and passionate enthusiasm for his mission finds vent in these words: “If they hope ever to exterminate the Turks they must begin with the Pope.”[343]“The Pope drives the whole world from the Christian faith to his devilish lies, so that the Pope’s rule is ten times worse than that of the Turk for both body and soul.”[344]

Previous to this, in February, 1519, he reveals in the following words the agitation and ferment going on within him: “I adjure you,” he says to his friend Spalatin, “if you would think aright of the Evangel, not to imagine that such a cause can be fought out without tumults, scandal and rebellion. You cannot make a pen out of a sword, or peace of war. The Word of God is a sword, war, ruin, scandal, destruction, poison and, as we read in the Old Covenant, ‘Like to a bear in the road and a lioness in the wood,’ so it withstands the sons of Ephraim.”[345]

No Apostle or Prophet ever laid claim to a Divine authorisation for their preaching in language so violent. Indeed, mere phrases and extracts from his writings scarcely suffice to give a true picture of the intensity of his prepossession for his supposed Divine calling and of his furious hatred of his opponents. It would, in fact, be necessary to read in their entirety certain of his polemical works. That they have not done so is the explanation why so many know only a polished Luther and have scarcely an inkling of the fierceness of the struggle which centred round his consciousnessof a Divine mission, and of the depth of his animosity against those who dared to gainsay him.

Nor was this consciousness of his without its effects on those around him. During the long years of his public life, it kindled the passion of thousands and contributed largely to the Peasant Revolt and the unhappy religious wars which followed later. Indirectly it was also productive of disaster for the Empire by forcing it to make terms with the turbulent elements within, and by preventing it from displaying a united front against the Turks and other enemies without. On the other hand, in the case of very many who honestly looked on Luther as a real reformer of the Church, it also served to infuse into them new enthusiasm for what they deemed the Christian cause.

Its effect on Luther’s character in later life was such as to make him, in his writings to the German people, rave like a maniac of the different forms of death best suited for Pope and Cardinals, viz. being hanged on the gallows with their tongues torn out, being drowned in the Tyrrhenean Sea, or “flayed alive.”[346]“How my flesh creeps and how my blood boils,” he cries, after one such outburst.[347]

If we remember the frenzy with which he carried out his religious enterprise, the high tension at which he ever worked and his inexhaustible source of eloquence, it is easy to fancy ourselves face to face with something more than human. The real nature of the spirit which, throughout Luther’s life, was ever so frantically at work within him, must for ever remain a secret. One eye alone, that of the All-seeing, can pierce these depths. Anxious Catholic contemporaries of Luther’s strongly suspected that they had to deal with one possessed by the evil spirit. This opinion was openly voiced, first by Johann Nathin, Luther’s contemporary at the Erfurt monastery, by Emser, Cochlæus, Dungersheim and certain other early opponents, and then by several others whose testimony will be heard later (vol. iv., xxvii., 1).

Catholic contemporaries also urged that his claim to a Divine mission was mere impudence. A simple monk, hitherto quite unknown to the world, so they said, breakshis vows and dares to set himself in opposition to the universal Church. A man, whose repute was not of the best, and who not only lacked any higher attestation, but actually exhibited in his doctrine of evangelical freedom, in the disorderly lives of his followers and in the dissensions promoted by his fanatical and stormy rhetoric, those very signs which our Redeemer had warned His disciples would follow false prophets—such a man, they argued, could surely not be a reformer, but was rather a destroyer, of Christendom; he perceives not that the Church, for all her present abuses and corruption, has nevertheless all down the ages scattered throughout the world the Divine blessings committed to her care by a promise which shall never fail, and that she will soon rise again purer and more beautiful than ever, for the lasting benefit of mankind.

Luther, on the contrary, sought to base his claim to a Divine mission on the abuses rampant in Popery, which, he would have it, was altogether under the dominion of the devil and quite beyond redemption.

Luther, subsequent to his apostasy, accustomed himself to speak of Catholicism in a fashion scarcely credible. He did not shrink even from the grossest and most impudent depreciation of the Church of the Popes. His incessant indulgence in such abuse calls for some examination into its nature and the mental state of which it was a product.

The Roman Curia, Luther repeatedly declared, did not believe one word of all the truths of religion; at the faithful who held fast to Revelation they scoffed and called them good simpletons (“buoni cristiani”); they knew nothing either of the Creed or of the Our Father, and from all the ecclesiastical books put together not as much could be learnt as from one page of Martin Luther’s Catechism.

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