CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVLUTHER’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS SOCIETY AND EDUCATION1. Historical Outlines for Judging of his Social WorkItwould be beyond our present scope to examine in detail all the views advanced concerning Luther’s social and economic attitude. Recent research in social economics has already rectified many of these.What the historian of sociology chiefly misses is any appreciation of Luther in the light of the theories and conditions prevailing at the close of the Middle Ages. It has been remarked quite rightly, that, from the way in which the matter is dealt with in Protestant Church-history and “practical theology,” it is perfectly clear that, hitherto, the Middle Ages have in many instances been altogether misjudged.[2165]There is still much for historical research to do in this field. Neglect to study as they deserved whole centuries of our history, prolific though they were in great things, has avenged itself by the one-sided character of the prevalent views concerning them. In the case of many writers too much attention to the verdicts pronounced by Luther on every possible occasion against the Church of the past is what is chiefly responsible for their disinclination to pursuethe matter further; they are too prone to regard things from the watch-tower of Lutheran theology. It is not so very long since hardly any paradox or calumny against the social “disorders” prevalent amongst the clergy and the monks, in family life and the commonwealth under Popery, was too monstrous, provided it had been uttered by the Wittenberg Professor, to be dished up again, though possibly under somewhat politer form, by the occupants of Protestant pulpits and chairs of theology.Statements such as the following, taken word for word from recent works, which, following our habit, we shall refrain from naming, are based on the traditional assertions of controversy and on insufficient acquaintance with the Middle Ages.“Luther accomplished something eminently positive when he put the State-idea on those lines which it was ultimately to follow in his own country.” For, “according to him, the duty of the State is the promotion of the general welfare.” “We have the fullest right to appeal to the spirit of his State policy, above all, because, in opposition to the mediæval view, it conceded to the State an independent status.” “The State, according to him, was to put in practice in social life the principle of ‘serving our neighbour.’”We often find all “political” as well as all “civil freedom” traced back to Luther. He it was, so we are told, who introduced, or laid the foundations for, the real mutual tolerance displayed by citizens in the State, just as he did for the principle of nationality, for scientific freedom, for the freedom for invention, and, finally, for the freedom of the Press.He “laid constant stress on charity towards our neighbour in direct contrast to the individualism of the Middle Ages, when even almsgiving resolved itself ultimately into mere selfish interest, the giver living in hope of a heavenly reward.” “He proclaimed that: Mendicancy was to be done away with.... The number of the destitute, and their claim on public benevolence he reduced to a minimum. These principles are in direct contrast with the devout and indiscriminate almsgiving of the Middle Ages and paved the way for the modern poor-law system.”“The sanctity of the home and the family had suffered severely under the influence of monasticism.” Luther had to “reorganise the methods of education in order to make, of the home and the family, institutions for the public welfare.” He became the “father of the modern National Schools.”“In his plans for the maintenance and direction of civic affairs Luther once more brought into their own the ‘principles of social responsibility.’”He set aside the mediæval “contempt for material thingsand for labour as a means of production.” Luther performed a signal service to economics by restoring respect for work; for, “maybe, there was no phenomenon of mediæval life which presented a greater obstacle to material happiness than laziness.” “Economic progress was impossible” where the theory prevailed, that “the contemplative life was of greater value than the active.” “Luther bestowed new dignity not only on work in general, but also on its every branch”; according to him “no work is degrading which serves the interests of mankind.”He was the “guardian and promoter of the interests of society,” and the “importance of his influence is still more enhanced by the fact that he showed himself a conservative and guiding spirit in the midst of social disorder and confusion of ideas.”If this holds good of the service he rendered to society as a whole, he was also within narrower limits the “reformer and restorer” of family life. His own marriage was “one of his greatest reforming acts, by which he confirmed his rehabilitation of the conjugal state, and, by his labours as a whole, he secured to marriage, and thus to the very foundation of family life, the prerogative of being a ‘divine institution.’” He brought the duties of the family into respect, whereas, formerly, “the Church, which permeated everything, had been the cause of their neglect.”“It remains an historical truth that the greatness of the German people in politics, economics and intellectual life may be traced back to those divine powers which the Reformation set free by its recognition of the free grace of God in Christ.”There are, however, other Protestant scholars, who are not theologians, who regard such praise of Luther’s social importance as either quite mistaken or at least greatly exaggerated; in their opinion Luther’s services lay rather in his work for religion, and on behalf of the knowledge of God and union with Him by faith.L. Feuchtwanger, for instance, a representative sociologist, recently spoke in tones almost ironical of the view held “by most [Protestant] Church-historians,” who praise “the religion of Luther as having produced autonomous ethics, the modern State, a society that despises idleness, the German family, in short all that is great and good.” He is of opinion that such views call for “revision”; nor would such a revision, so he says, “detract from the eminent importance of the reformation.”[2166]We shall speak later on of the proofs he adduces to show the error of the “obstinate opinion,” as he terms it, “that Protestantism created the modern system of public charity,”[2167]and that Luther brought about the regeneration of benevolence.E. Troeltsch, the Heidelberg theologian, says in “Die Bedeutungdes Protestantismus für die Entstehung der modernen Welt”: “As a matter of fact, the importance of Protestantism must not be one-sidedly exaggerated. The foundations of the modern world in the State, in society, in economics, learning and art were established in a great measure independently of Protestantism, partly as an outgrowth of the later Middle Ages, partly as the result of the Renaissance, particularly of the Renaissance as assimilated by Protestantism, partly—as in the case of the Catholic countries, Spain, Austria, Italy and especially France—after the rise of Protestantism and concurrently with it.” “With the principle of nationalism,” writes Troeltsch, “his [Luther’s] system of an established Church had no connection. The latter merely promoted the solidification and centralisation of the chief authorities, whereas the former is a product of the entirely modern democratic awakening of the masses and the romantic idea of a national spirit.” In another passage he says: “There can be no question of [Protestantism] having paved the way for the modern idea of freedom—of science, of thought, or of the press—nor of its having inspired the scholarship which it controlled with new aims, or led it to break new ground.”[2168]There are even Protestants who are disposed to deny that Luther took any interest in the State and in public affairs. “It follows from Luther’s views of life,” writes Erich Brandenburg, the author of “Luthers Anschauung vom Staate und der Gesellschaft,” that a Christian neither can nor ought to care for the outbuilding of the existing order of the State and society. For “God has thrown us into the world and put us under the rule of the devil, so that here we have no paradise but look forward hourly to every kind of misfortune to life and limb, wife and child, goods and honour.’[2169]... By the fact of his birth the Christian [according to Luther] has been given a definite place.... To seek for a better one, or to wish to create an entirely different state of things would be to rebel against the Will of God. Far from its being the Christian’s duty to strive after an improvement in the order of the State or of society, any such striving would be really sinful.” “He [Luther] regards civil life as merely one aspect of the probation which he has to endure on earth”; in his eyes the struggle for political freedom simply implies an “unlawful devotion to earthly aims, an absence of trust in God, and an attempt to create a paradise on earth by our own strength.”[2170]Where tyranny prevails one is not even allowed to emigrate, so Luther insists, unless indeed the ruler will not suffer the Evangel, when it became lawful and advisable, to seek another home.[2171]Nowadays people have a different conception,so Brandenburg points out, of national greatness and political freedom.[2172]Albert Kalthoff, a Bremen preacher, who belongs to the extreme left of the Protestant party, goes still further: “There is a considerable amount of conceit sticking to our Protestant churches, indeed the Reformation festival seems to afford it a fitting occasion for celebrating each year its orgy. What is not Protestantism supposed to have brought to the world? National freedom and prosperity, modern science and technicology, all this we hear described as the fruit of the tree of Protestant life; not long since I even read of a German professor who quite seriously ascribed the whole of our present-day civilisation to Luther.”[2173]Luther’s favourable traits in respect of social conditions, his eloquent admonitions on family life and love of our neighbour deserve a high place. There is no call again to bring forward examples after all we have quoted elsewhere. Luther is even fond of including under the “neighbourly love” of which he so frequently speaks the whole of our social activity on behalf of our fellow men.[2174]His struggle against voluntary celibacy and renunciation of the world, however ill advised, had at least one good result, viz. that it afforded him an opportunity to speak strongly on the duties of the home, which were so often neglected, on the importance of the humble, everyday tasks involved in matrimony and the training of children, on work at home and for the community, whether in a private or a public capacity. That plentiful children were a blessing, a principle which had always been recognised in the Christian world, he insisted upon emphatically in connection with his advocacy of marriage. The keeping of the fourth commandment, which had always been regarded as the corner-stone of society, was warmly emphasised by him as regards therelations both to parents and to other secular authorities. It would be hard to gainsay that his teaching has bequeathed to Protestantism a wealth of instructions on the cultivation of family affection and the maintenance of a well-ordered household. From the first it was beneficial to the social foundations of society, and its good influence has been apparent even down to our own times. Luther’s writings and sermons, as we soon shall see, also contain some excellent admonitions against usury as well as against begging; he preaches contentment with our lot as well as honest industry; he has also much to say of relief of the poor and education of the young either for the learned professions or for life in general. In the same way that he sought to interest the community more and more in the relief of the indigent—though by rather novel means, which it seemed to him might take the place of the help formerly afforded by the churches, monasteries and private charity—so also his appeals on behalf of the schools were addressed more to the congregation, the authorities and the State than had been customary in the days of the Church schools. The increased share now taken by these bodies in this work, if kept within reasonable bounds, might indeed turn out advantageous, though the results did not reach his expectations, and in fact did not show themselves until much later, and then were due to factors altogether independent of Protestantism.It must also be pointed out to Luther’s credit that he at once vigorously withstood the communistic views which had begun to make their appearance even before his day, as soon as experience had opened his eyes to their dangers. He perceived the radical trend of the Anabaptists—which it is true was not without some affinity with his own doctrines. He came after a while to oppose in popular writings the extravagant social demands of the peasants, and, in spite of the crass exaggeration of his language, his tracts give many a useful hint for the improvement of existing conditions on Christian lines.The charge he brings against earlier times, viz. that, owing to the too great number of clergy and religious a premium had been placed on idleness,[2175]is perhaps not devoid of a grain of truth; nor was his complaint that the indolence of so many people who lived by the Church endangered thewelfare of the State and was opposed to the interests of the community altogether unjustified.[2176]The strongly worded passages where Luther speaks in favour of work and exhorts the authorities to cultivate and promote labour were quite in place, though it is true they can be matched by a whole row of equally vigorous admonitions by Catholic writers, dating from the Middle Ages and from the years immediately preceding Luther’s day.[2177]Owing to his having by his attacks on ecclesiastical institutions dried up many of the existing sources of charity there can be no doubt that indirectly he contributed to awaken those who were less well off to a sense of their duty to work for their own living. In this wise the sense of responsibility was aroused in the masses. The secular authorities were also obliged to intervene more frequently owing to the falling off in the support afforded by the Church to the needy and oppressed, particularly in cases where all the labour and exertion of the individual were insufficient to guarantee subsistence or legal protection. In so far therefore, viz. in regard of the growing needs of social life, it has been truly remarked that the religious revolution of the 16th century smoothed the way for the material conditions of modern society and new cultural problems; in this sense Luther assisted in bringing about the economic conditions of the present day. We shall say nothing here of the rise of the modern spirit with its rejection of authority and its principle of unrestrained intellectual freedom.Luther also helped in a certain sense to set the worldly authorities on their own feet and to make them more independent. This was an outcome of his violent struggle against the influence previously exerted over the State by the olden Church, or to speak more accurately of his assault on the Church as such, albeit it was attended by the other eminently unfortunate results. In the course of history,according to the Divine plan, new and useful elements not seldom spring up from evil seed. Owing to a too close union of the two powers and the assumption of many worldly functions by the Church, the representatives of the latter were too often exposed in their work to a not unjustifiable criticism. The Church was charged with being inefficient in her management of outward business and this detracted from the respect due to her spiritual functions; unnecessary jealousy was aroused and social developments in themselves desirable were frequently retarded. Thus, though the storm let loose by Luther wrought great devastation, yet it is not to be regretted that since then many temporal forces now transferred from the Church to the State have been set to work with satisfactory results such as might otherwise not have been attained. In some places certainly they had come into operation long before this, but speaking generally, things in this respect were still in a backward state.Important factors for judging of Luther’s social work are two ideas on which he laid great stress and which we have already discussed. One is the separation of the Church from the world, which, albeit, in very contradictory fashion, he attempted to carry out; the other is his plea that the Church, which he sought to divest of all legislative power, possessed no authority to make binding laws. What has been said already may here be summed up anew with a few more quotations to the point.We have in the first place the separation of the spiritual and supernatural. Luther’s work did great harm in the sphere of the supernatural and, so far as his influence extended, alienated society from it.[2178]His doctrine, particularly concerning the state of man, grace and good works was of such a nature as in reality to withdraw society from the supernatural atmosphere, however much he might extol the “knowledge of the free grace of God in Christ,” which he claimed had been won by his exertions.The detachment of the supernatural life expressed itself also in a systematic, jealous exclusion of any worldly meddling in the spiritual domain, for the rule of the Gospel must, according to Luther, be something quite distinct fromthe worldly rule. By his principles and his writings he materially contributed to the secularisation of society and the State. According to him Christ simply says without any reservation: “My kingdom is no business of the Roman Emperor.” The spiritual rule must be as far apart from the temporal rule “as heaven is from earth.”[2179]“What is most characteristic of the kingdom of grace,” so writes E. Luthardt, one of the best-known Lutheran moralists, who, however, fails to point out its want of clearness, “is the order of grace, whilst what is most characteristic of the kingdom of the world and the world’s life is the order of law; they are quite different in kind nor do they run on the same lines but belong to entirely different worlds. To the one I belong as a Christian, to the other as a man; for we live at once in two different spheres of life, and are at the same time in heaven and on earth.” “Each one must keep within his own limits,” and “not make of the Gospel outward laws for life in the world, for Jesus gave His law only for Christians, not for the rest.”[2180]Luthardt rightly appeals to Luther’s words: “This is what the Gospel teaches you: It has nothing to do with worldly things, but leaves them as God has already disposed them by means of the worldly authorities.” “The kingdom of Christ has nothing to do with outward things, but leaves them all unaltered to follow their own order.” “In God’s kingdom in which He rules through the Gospel there is no going to law, nor have we anything to do with law, but everything is summed up in forgiveness, remission and bestowing, and there is no anger or punishment, nothing but benevolence and service of our neighbour.” As to the temporal matters, “there the lawyers are free to help and advise how things are to be.” “If anyone were to try and rule the world according to the Gospel, just think, my good friend, what the result would be. He would break the chains and bonds that hold back the wild and savage beasts.”[2181]—It is true that he here altogether overlooks the fact that religion has, on the contrary, to help in governing the world by her moral laws, restraining the “wild and savage” elements by means of her laws, her authority and her means of grace; just as when speaking above of the two spheres of life in which man is placed he forgets that we are endowed with but one conscience and one responsibility, viz. that of the Christian, which is inseparable from man as he is at present constituted.“Now, praise be to God, all the world knows,” says Luther, of his sundering of the two spheres of life, “with what diligence and pains I have laboured and still labour to distinguish between the two offices or rules, the temporal and the spiritual, and to keep them, apart; each one now is instructed as to his own work and kept to it, whereas in Popery it was all so entangled and in such confusion that no one kept within his own powers, dominion and rights.”[2182]Protestants have found the essential difference between Protestantism and Catholicism to consist in the fact, that, according to Luther’s directions, Protestantism separates “religion and theology, faith and knowledge, morality and politics, Christianity and art,” whereas Catholicism, according to the motto of Pius X, seeks to “renew all things in Christ.” “We know that revelation has only an inward mission to the individual soul; the Catholic believes in its public mission for universal civilisation.” “We should fear for the purity of our faith and no less for morality and civilised order should these domains ever be christianised.”[2183]The result of forbidding the “spiritual rule” ever to encroach on the temporal domain was so to enfeeble the precepts of ethics as to deprive them of any real authority for making themselves felt as a power in secular government.With Luther everything is constructed without any basis of authority; he proffers, as he is fond of saying, “opinions and advice,”[2184]and even this he does without a trace of theory or method; as for binding regulations he has none; nor has he any Church behind him that can set up an obligatory ethical standard; he recognises indeed the universal priesthood, but no Church with any paramount authority in spiritual things, no hierarchy and no social institution such as the Catholic Church is. This is the chief reason why his moral instructions lack any definite and binding force over people’s minds. The great mass of mankind must be guided by clear and fixed rules, counsels which address themselves to man’s good-will are in themselves practically useless for the direction or guidance of the masses, constituted as they are. The Gospel, moreover, in spite of what Luther says to the contrary, though it brings the glad tidings of salvation and forgiveness, also contains a large number of strict moral precepts; the Divine Founder of the Church, in His wisdom, also equipped her with full power to issue, on the linestraced out by Himself, the commands called for by the needs of every age. She disposes of spiritual penalties and has the right to excommunicate offenders when this is necessary to emphasise her laws.With Luther the last resource lay in the system of the State-Church. The “Christian authorities” became the authorities of the congregations (see below, p. 579 ff.).[2185]Thus the founder of the new religion frequently requires the rulers who had rallied to his system to make use of their power in order to lend their sanction and authority to the ethical regulations he gave to his followers, and which he himself was unable to enforce.Here we shall only consider one class of cases where it was of great importance to him to see his “opinion and advice” followed. According to him, as Luthardt himself admits in his “Ethik Luthers,”[2186]“The authorities were to serve and promote the cause of the Evangel.... From this Luther went on, however, to give advice which really was at variance with his fundamental views. It is true when he demands that the rulers should not suffer any such sects as deny the rights, etc., of the authorities, he was merely imposing on them the fulfilment of one of the duties of the State,[2187]but when he requires the rulers to make use of their powers to check the scandal of heresy and false worship, which was the most horrible and dangerous form of scandal; or, when heresy had been proved from Scripture, to forbid its preaching; ‘to insist on the true worship, to punish and forbid false doctrine and idolatry and to risk everything rather than allow themselves and their people to be forced into idolatry and falsehood’; or ‘to banish from the landthose who deny such articles as the Divinity of Christ and the redemption,’ etc.; or again, when two opposing parties confront each other, as, for instance, the Lutherans and the Papists, to decide according to Scripture and forbid the party that failed to agree with Scripture to preach,[2188]—all these and similar matters are plainly based on the assumption that the ruler had a right to form an independent opinion as to whether a doctrine was or was not in accordance with Scripture, an assumption which Luther, as a matter of fact, strongly deprecates in theory. When Luther speaks in this way he is taking it for granted that he has to do with a Christian ruler, who as such does not merely perform his office of ruler like the heathen Emperor or the Grand Turk, but is influenced by the Gospel and recognises the Word of God.”Expressed in different words Luthardt’s ideas would amount to this: According to Luther it is imperative that the rulers should be good Lutherans and accept the Evangel and the Word of God as he taught it. No other Christian ruler may venture to put the above measures in force, for the truth is he is no Christian at all.This leads us to look closer into Luther’s ideas on the secular authority and the State-Church.2. The State and the State ChurchMost Protestant writers become very eloquent and go into great detail when dealing with the main ideas Luther is supposed to have expressed on the State and on social order.He maintained, so they assert, and impressed strongly on all ages to come, that the purpose of the State was to keep the peace and uphold the right against the wicked by means of legislation and penalties: “Magistratus instrumentum, per quod Deus pacem et iura conservat.”[2189]This temporal peace was the best earthly possession and comprised all temporal blessings; in point offact the “true preaching office” should, so he declared, bring peace, but with the greater number “this is not the case,”[2190]so that the authority of the ruler was necessary for the maintenance of outward peace. “This worldly government,” according to him, “preserves temporal peace, rights and life,” indeed he says it makes wild beasts into men and saves men from becoming wild beasts.[2191]The true Evangelical doctrine, unlike the earlier one, leads to the secular government being regarded as “the great gift of God and His own gracious order,”[2192]notwithstanding that all authority was instituted by God on account of the sin that reigns in man. Human reason and experience, and also the Holy Ghost, must teach the authorities how to fulfil their duty. They must, so far as this is possible, work for the common welfare of their subjects in this world. Since, according to Luther, they must punish what is evil in their subjects’ external behaviour and take care that “all public scandal be banished and removed,”[2193]their task seems to trench on morals and on religion. Good sovereigns instruct their people concerning temporal things, “how to manage their homes and farms, how to rule the land and the people, how to make money and secure possessions, how to become rich and powerful,” further, “how we are to till the fields, plough, sow, reap and keep our house.”[2194]In short the ruler must interest himself in the needs of his subjects as “though they were his very own.”[2195]The worldly rulers must provide for the support of their subjects, and particularly for the poor, the widows and orphans, and extend to them their fatherly protection.Other fine sayings of Luther’s on this subject and on the duties he assigns to the rulers are instanced in plenty.The ruler “holds the place of a father, only that his sway is more extensive, for he is not merely the father of one family, as it were, but of as many as there are inhabitants, citizens or subjects in his country.... And because they bear this name and title and look upon it as in all honour their greatest treasure, it is our duty to respect them and regard them as our dearest, most precious possession on earth.”[2196]Luther insisted in the strongest terms on the duty of obedience, more particularlyafter his experiences during the Peasant War. He emphasises very strongly, in opposition to the fanatics, that the secular Courts must rule and their authority be recognised, and also that the oath must be taken when required.He even tells the rebels: “God would rather suffer the rulers who do what is wrong than the mob whose cause is just. The reason is that when Master Omnes wields the sword and makes war on the pretence that he is in the right, things fare badly. For a Prince, if he is to remain a Prince, cannot well chop off the heads of all, though he may act unjustly and cut off the heads of some.” For he must needs retain some about him, continues Luther with a touch of humour; but when the mob is in revolt then “off go all the heads.”[2197]“Even where a ruler has pledged himself to govern his subjects in accordance with a constitution—‘according to prearranged articles’—Luther will not admit that it is lawful to deprive him of his authority should he disregard his oath.... No one has the right or the command from God to enforce a penalty in the case of the authorities.”[2198]But things ought not to reach such a pass in the case of the prince’s government. Obedience should make everything smooth for him. He cherishes and provides for all, as many as he has subjects, and may thus be called the father of them all, just as in old days the heathen called their pious rulers the fathers and saviours of the country.[2199]These ideas are not, however, peculiar to Luther. They were current long before his time and had been discussed from every point of view by Christian writers who, in turn, had borrowed them from antiquity.In all this, which, furthermore, Luther never summed up in a theory, all that is new is his original and forcible manner of putting forward his ideas. “It is hardly possible to argue,” says Frank G. Ward, one of the latest Protestant writers in this field, “that his view of the duty of the State contained anything very new.... The opinion that the State had an educational duty was held even in classical antiquity.”[2200]If it was held in Pagan times, still more so was this the case in the Christian Middle Ages. It is to classical antiquity that we just heard Luther appeal when he referred to the “pater patriæ.” He had become acquainted in the Catholic schools with the ideas of antiquity purified by Christian philosophy.Still, there is much that is really new in Luther’s views on the State and the rulers which does not come out in the passage quoted above; what is new, however, far from being applauded by modern Protestant judges, is often reprehended by them.As the accounts we had to give elsewhere were already so full it will not be necessary again to go into details; it is, however, worth while again to emphasise the conclusions already arrived at by calling attention to some data not as yet taken into consideration.In the first place one thing that was new was the energetic application made by Luther in his earlier years of his peculiar principle of the complete separation of world and Church. The State, or, rather, ordered society (for there was as yet no political State in the modern sense), was consequently de-Christianised by him, at least in principle, at least if we ignore the change which soon took place in Luther himself (see below, p. 576 f.). The proof of this de-Christianisation is found in his own statements. In his writing of 1523, “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,” he expressly told the rulers of the land that they had no concern with good people and “that it was not their business to make them pious,” but that they were only there to rule a world estranged from God, and to maintain order by force when the peace was disturbed or men suffered injustice. Amongst real Christians there would, according to Luther, be no secular rulers.[2201]Even when Luther, in this tract of which he thought so highly, is instructing a pious Christian ruler on his duties, he has nothing to say of his duty to protect and further the Church, though in earlier days all admonitions to the princes had insisted mainly on this.His view of the two powers at work in the social order was new, particularly as regards the spiritual sphere and the position of those holding authority in the Church. The believing Christians in Luther’s eyes formed merely a union of souls,[2202]without any hierarchy or a jot of spiritual authority or power; there is in fact only one power on earth qualified to issue regulations, viz. the secular power; the combination of the two powers, which had formed the basis of public order previously, was thrown over, any spiritual ruler being out of place where all the faithful were priests. There isbut a “ministry” of the word, conferred by election of the faithful, and its one duty is to bring the Gospel home to souls; it knows nothing of law, vengeance or punishment.[2203]The ministry of the Word must indeed stand, but is by no means a supervising body, in spite of the “neo-Lutheran conception of the office,” as some Protestant theologians of the present day disapprovingly call it.Carl Holl, in his “Luther und das landesherrliche Kirchenregiment” (1911), says with some truth: “Luther knows as little of a Christian State as he does of a Christian shoemaking trade”; “Our life here below is only Christian in so far as the individuals concerned are Christians. Their sphere of action is not prescribed to Christians by Christianity but rather by the divine order of nature.”[2204]—Hence the whole public congregational system, so far as it needs laws to govern it, must remain on a purely natural basis.This view is confirmed by the following odd-sounding statements of Luther’s:Among Christians the sword can have no place, “hence you cannot make use of it on or among Christians, who have no need of it”; still the world “cannot and may not do without it” (this power); in other words, as Christians, both subjects and rulers suffer injustice gladly according to the Gospel, but, for the sake of their neighbours and for the keeping of order in the world, both favour the use of force. Secular rule does not extend beyond “life and limb and what is outward on this earth.”[2205]“Our squires, our princes and our bishops, shall see what fools they are,” when they “order us to believe the Church, the Fathers and the Councils though there is no Word of God in them. It is the apostles of the devil who order such things, not the Church.” And yet “our Emperor and the clever princes are doing this now.”[2206]Hence the princes must keep to their own outward sphere, viz. only coerce the wicked, and not seek to rule over Christians.“Christians can be governed by nothing but the Word of God. For Christians must be ruled by faith, not by outward works.... Those who do not believe are not Christians, nor do they belong to the kingdom of Christ, but to the kingdom of the world, hence they must be coerced and driven with the sword and by the outward government. Christians do everything that is good of their own accord and without being compelled, and God’s Word is enough for them.”[2207]When Luther contrasts in this way the kingdom of Christ and the true life of a Christian with the temporal kingdom and the functions of the authorities, he goes so far in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,” and even in his sermons, as strongly todepreciate the secular or civil power. He teaches, for instance, that the Christian who holds the office of ruler, must do things that are forbidden to Christians as such, for instance, pronounce sentence, put to death and use other strong measures against the unruly. But all this belongs in reality to hell.—“Whoever is under the secular rule,” so we read in a curious sermon in Luther’s Church-Postils, “is still far from the kingdom of heaven, for the place where all this belongs is hell; for instance, the prince who governs his people in such a way as to allow none to suffer injustice, and no evildoer to go unrequited, does well and receives praise.... Nevertheless, as explained above, this is not appointed for those who belong to heaven but merely in order that people may not sink yet deeper into hell and make things even worse. Therefore no one who is under the secular government can boast that he is acting rightly before God; in His sight it is still all wrong”; for of Christians more is required; whoever wishes to act according to the Gospel must ever be ready to suffer injustice.[2208]But the secular authority must, either “of its own initiative or at the instance of others, without any complaint, entreaty or exertion of his, help and protect him. Where it does not he must allow himself to be fleeced and abused, and not resist evil, according to the words of Christ. And be assured that this is no counsel of perfection as our sophists lyingly and blasphemously assert, but a strict command binding on all Christians.”[2209]There is a huge gulf between the kingdom of such a Christian and that of the “jailers, hangmen, lawyers, advocates and such-like rabble.”Such are the epithets Luther flings at the secular power, the State and its ministers, whose task it is to “seek out the wicked, convict them, strangle and put them to death.”[2210]These authorities must indeed exist and a Christian must submit to them willingly—not for his own sake but for that of his neighbour, i.e. for the sake of the common good; he himself has no need of them; the behaviour of the Christian towards this secular power must be dictated by his Christian love for his neighbour.A Protestant critic writes: “Luther hardly recognises any so-called Christian State.... We find Luther warning his hearers against seeing anything particularly useful or indispensable behind the work of the government. The ruler’s sense of responsibility was to be something purely human.... The Christian in fact has no need of any ruler.”[2211]“Luther’s interestin things political (see below) is practically nil; where the State can be of any use to him he welcomes it and even gives it its meed of praise.... His appreciation of the State is usually just a matter of feeling.”[2212]We come to see that “he took no independent interest in politics.... He even goes so far as to characterise the outward order of the State as a necessary evil. State organisation in his eyes is simply a kind of enforced charity towards our neighbour.”[2213]“Luther knows no Christian State,” says another Protestant writer of Luther’s theories. “The State is as worldly a thing as eating and drinking”; indeed its commands and its deeds “all belong to hell.”[2214]This worldly bond of union is good, when, with God’s help, it follows the dictates of reason. It is the only union that exists, for Luther does not recognise State and Church as two unions. This, says Holl, is now regarded “as an axiom.”[2215]We may, it is true, admit with Holl that Luther is not quite consistent in this, but this is only because he reverts inadvertently to the old ideas, and, even in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,” incidentally speaks of a spiritual authority and of bishops in whom it is invested.[2216]Some Protestant writers, quite erroneously, extol the “Christendom” equipped with both spiritual and secular authority which Luther substituted for the twin powers of yore. It was only owing to his want of logic, and out of practical considerations for the interests of his religion (see below), that he was able to endow as he did the State with spiritual authority. And, besides, “Christendom,” to which indeed he often enough refers, had, in reality, been completely abrogated by him at least in the traditional sense, viz. of the kingdom of God on earth which embraces as in one family all the baptised. For had he not deprived baptism of its dignity and made membership of the Church dependent on the faith of the adult?“Luther drags away the corner stone on which the whole edifice [of Christendom] rests,” says Holl. “According to his teaching we are not simply baptised into the Church as was the case according to the Catholic doctrine. Baptism, indeed, even to him, constitutes the foundation of Christianity, but the grace of the sacrament is only effective in those who believe in the promises offered therein (‘Sacramenta non implentur dum fiunt, sed dum creduntur’).... Luther, by making admission into the spiritual society dependent on a personal condition, destroyed the idea of Christendom in the mediæval Catholic sense”;[2217]this Holl regards as his chief merit.This is undoubtedly so true, that, in the case of the wars against the Turks, Luther refused to hear of any “Christendom” in the traditional sense which might be pitted against the Crescent, and this on the ground that but few of the combatants were real Christians, i.e. real believers in the Evangel he preached.[2218]He also reserves the honourable title of Christians, as the headings of many of his writings show, for those who personally professed the new faith.[2219]Was Luther the Founder of the Modern State?The question seems so extraordinary, that we must hasten to say that some of Luther’s more passionate admirers have actually claimed for him that he prepared the way for the modern State.The difficulty of proving that he is really entitled to such an honour becomes obvious as soon as we recall that all modern theories of government agree in seeing the ideal community in a well-knit body with equal rights and equalliberties for all, religious freedom included. The same standard of justice applies without exception to every citizen and all religions (such at least is the programme) are esteemed alike; moreover, to this standard of justice, all, even the monarch or the supreme representative of the republic, must bow, seeing that the heads of the State have ceased to be absolute.But what, according to Luther’s theory and practice, was the position of the Lutheran ruler in respect of his civil and religious authority? How did it stand with the freedom and independence of his subjects, particularly where different religious practices co-existed?It is true that, taking his instructions to the rulers just discussed, which he derived from his principle of the separation of Church and world, we should expect him to recognise freedom of conscience. The instructions, however, though seemingly addressed to all, sprang from his opposition to the Catholic rulers. The latter, particularly in the infancy of Protestantism, were above all to be urged to grant entire liberty and not to trouble about religion; what Luther wished to impress upon them was that they had no right to interfere with the Lutheran movement within their jurisdiction.[2220]Luther spoke quite otherwise when dealing with princes who were favourable to his preaching, or who had introduced the new religious system. In proportion as the rulers and municipalities that favoured his cause grew more numerous, he came to confer on them full powers to stamp out the Catholic faith, and even made it their duty so to do. He also perceived all too well the extent to which zealous Protestant princes, such as Johann of Saxony and Philip of Hesse, could further his innovations. From that time forward he promoted the growing authority of the sovereigns over the Churches, above all by warmly defending the principle that in every country uniformity of worship and doctrine must prevail, short of which there would always be “revolts and sects,” as he said in 1526.[2221]This was, however, to destroy the main groundwork of the modern State theory, viz. the personal freedom of theindividual. It was to interfere with the evenness of justice and with the sacred right of conscience. What other rights of the subject would the sovereign regard as sacred once the door had been opened to arbitrary action in the domain of religious practice?[2222]The argument with which Luther conceals his selfish aim of securing new fields for his own religious system, and veils the real motive of his struggle against Popery, is deserving of special attention in spite of all its frivolity.

CHAPTER XXXVLUTHER’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS SOCIETY AND EDUCATION1. Historical Outlines for Judging of his Social WorkItwould be beyond our present scope to examine in detail all the views advanced concerning Luther’s social and economic attitude. Recent research in social economics has already rectified many of these.What the historian of sociology chiefly misses is any appreciation of Luther in the light of the theories and conditions prevailing at the close of the Middle Ages. It has been remarked quite rightly, that, from the way in which the matter is dealt with in Protestant Church-history and “practical theology,” it is perfectly clear that, hitherto, the Middle Ages have in many instances been altogether misjudged.[2165]There is still much for historical research to do in this field. Neglect to study as they deserved whole centuries of our history, prolific though they were in great things, has avenged itself by the one-sided character of the prevalent views concerning them. In the case of many writers too much attention to the verdicts pronounced by Luther on every possible occasion against the Church of the past is what is chiefly responsible for their disinclination to pursuethe matter further; they are too prone to regard things from the watch-tower of Lutheran theology. It is not so very long since hardly any paradox or calumny against the social “disorders” prevalent amongst the clergy and the monks, in family life and the commonwealth under Popery, was too monstrous, provided it had been uttered by the Wittenberg Professor, to be dished up again, though possibly under somewhat politer form, by the occupants of Protestant pulpits and chairs of theology.Statements such as the following, taken word for word from recent works, which, following our habit, we shall refrain from naming, are based on the traditional assertions of controversy and on insufficient acquaintance with the Middle Ages.“Luther accomplished something eminently positive when he put the State-idea on those lines which it was ultimately to follow in his own country.” For, “according to him, the duty of the State is the promotion of the general welfare.” “We have the fullest right to appeal to the spirit of his State policy, above all, because, in opposition to the mediæval view, it conceded to the State an independent status.” “The State, according to him, was to put in practice in social life the principle of ‘serving our neighbour.’”We often find all “political” as well as all “civil freedom” traced back to Luther. He it was, so we are told, who introduced, or laid the foundations for, the real mutual tolerance displayed by citizens in the State, just as he did for the principle of nationality, for scientific freedom, for the freedom for invention, and, finally, for the freedom of the Press.He “laid constant stress on charity towards our neighbour in direct contrast to the individualism of the Middle Ages, when even almsgiving resolved itself ultimately into mere selfish interest, the giver living in hope of a heavenly reward.” “He proclaimed that: Mendicancy was to be done away with.... The number of the destitute, and their claim on public benevolence he reduced to a minimum. These principles are in direct contrast with the devout and indiscriminate almsgiving of the Middle Ages and paved the way for the modern poor-law system.”“The sanctity of the home and the family had suffered severely under the influence of monasticism.” Luther had to “reorganise the methods of education in order to make, of the home and the family, institutions for the public welfare.” He became the “father of the modern National Schools.”“In his plans for the maintenance and direction of civic affairs Luther once more brought into their own the ‘principles of social responsibility.’”He set aside the mediæval “contempt for material thingsand for labour as a means of production.” Luther performed a signal service to economics by restoring respect for work; for, “maybe, there was no phenomenon of mediæval life which presented a greater obstacle to material happiness than laziness.” “Economic progress was impossible” where the theory prevailed, that “the contemplative life was of greater value than the active.” “Luther bestowed new dignity not only on work in general, but also on its every branch”; according to him “no work is degrading which serves the interests of mankind.”He was the “guardian and promoter of the interests of society,” and the “importance of his influence is still more enhanced by the fact that he showed himself a conservative and guiding spirit in the midst of social disorder and confusion of ideas.”If this holds good of the service he rendered to society as a whole, he was also within narrower limits the “reformer and restorer” of family life. His own marriage was “one of his greatest reforming acts, by which he confirmed his rehabilitation of the conjugal state, and, by his labours as a whole, he secured to marriage, and thus to the very foundation of family life, the prerogative of being a ‘divine institution.’” He brought the duties of the family into respect, whereas, formerly, “the Church, which permeated everything, had been the cause of their neglect.”“It remains an historical truth that the greatness of the German people in politics, economics and intellectual life may be traced back to those divine powers which the Reformation set free by its recognition of the free grace of God in Christ.”There are, however, other Protestant scholars, who are not theologians, who regard such praise of Luther’s social importance as either quite mistaken or at least greatly exaggerated; in their opinion Luther’s services lay rather in his work for religion, and on behalf of the knowledge of God and union with Him by faith.L. Feuchtwanger, for instance, a representative sociologist, recently spoke in tones almost ironical of the view held “by most [Protestant] Church-historians,” who praise “the religion of Luther as having produced autonomous ethics, the modern State, a society that despises idleness, the German family, in short all that is great and good.” He is of opinion that such views call for “revision”; nor would such a revision, so he says, “detract from the eminent importance of the reformation.”[2166]We shall speak later on of the proofs he adduces to show the error of the “obstinate opinion,” as he terms it, “that Protestantism created the modern system of public charity,”[2167]and that Luther brought about the regeneration of benevolence.E. Troeltsch, the Heidelberg theologian, says in “Die Bedeutungdes Protestantismus für die Entstehung der modernen Welt”: “As a matter of fact, the importance of Protestantism must not be one-sidedly exaggerated. The foundations of the modern world in the State, in society, in economics, learning and art were established in a great measure independently of Protestantism, partly as an outgrowth of the later Middle Ages, partly as the result of the Renaissance, particularly of the Renaissance as assimilated by Protestantism, partly—as in the case of the Catholic countries, Spain, Austria, Italy and especially France—after the rise of Protestantism and concurrently with it.” “With the principle of nationalism,” writes Troeltsch, “his [Luther’s] system of an established Church had no connection. The latter merely promoted the solidification and centralisation of the chief authorities, whereas the former is a product of the entirely modern democratic awakening of the masses and the romantic idea of a national spirit.” In another passage he says: “There can be no question of [Protestantism] having paved the way for the modern idea of freedom—of science, of thought, or of the press—nor of its having inspired the scholarship which it controlled with new aims, or led it to break new ground.”[2168]There are even Protestants who are disposed to deny that Luther took any interest in the State and in public affairs. “It follows from Luther’s views of life,” writes Erich Brandenburg, the author of “Luthers Anschauung vom Staate und der Gesellschaft,” that a Christian neither can nor ought to care for the outbuilding of the existing order of the State and society. For “God has thrown us into the world and put us under the rule of the devil, so that here we have no paradise but look forward hourly to every kind of misfortune to life and limb, wife and child, goods and honour.’[2169]... By the fact of his birth the Christian [according to Luther] has been given a definite place.... To seek for a better one, or to wish to create an entirely different state of things would be to rebel against the Will of God. Far from its being the Christian’s duty to strive after an improvement in the order of the State or of society, any such striving would be really sinful.” “He [Luther] regards civil life as merely one aspect of the probation which he has to endure on earth”; in his eyes the struggle for political freedom simply implies an “unlawful devotion to earthly aims, an absence of trust in God, and an attempt to create a paradise on earth by our own strength.”[2170]Where tyranny prevails one is not even allowed to emigrate, so Luther insists, unless indeed the ruler will not suffer the Evangel, when it became lawful and advisable, to seek another home.[2171]Nowadays people have a different conception,so Brandenburg points out, of national greatness and political freedom.[2172]Albert Kalthoff, a Bremen preacher, who belongs to the extreme left of the Protestant party, goes still further: “There is a considerable amount of conceit sticking to our Protestant churches, indeed the Reformation festival seems to afford it a fitting occasion for celebrating each year its orgy. What is not Protestantism supposed to have brought to the world? National freedom and prosperity, modern science and technicology, all this we hear described as the fruit of the tree of Protestant life; not long since I even read of a German professor who quite seriously ascribed the whole of our present-day civilisation to Luther.”[2173]Luther’s favourable traits in respect of social conditions, his eloquent admonitions on family life and love of our neighbour deserve a high place. There is no call again to bring forward examples after all we have quoted elsewhere. Luther is even fond of including under the “neighbourly love” of which he so frequently speaks the whole of our social activity on behalf of our fellow men.[2174]His struggle against voluntary celibacy and renunciation of the world, however ill advised, had at least one good result, viz. that it afforded him an opportunity to speak strongly on the duties of the home, which were so often neglected, on the importance of the humble, everyday tasks involved in matrimony and the training of children, on work at home and for the community, whether in a private or a public capacity. That plentiful children were a blessing, a principle which had always been recognised in the Christian world, he insisted upon emphatically in connection with his advocacy of marriage. The keeping of the fourth commandment, which had always been regarded as the corner-stone of society, was warmly emphasised by him as regards therelations both to parents and to other secular authorities. It would be hard to gainsay that his teaching has bequeathed to Protestantism a wealth of instructions on the cultivation of family affection and the maintenance of a well-ordered household. From the first it was beneficial to the social foundations of society, and its good influence has been apparent even down to our own times. Luther’s writings and sermons, as we soon shall see, also contain some excellent admonitions against usury as well as against begging; he preaches contentment with our lot as well as honest industry; he has also much to say of relief of the poor and education of the young either for the learned professions or for life in general. In the same way that he sought to interest the community more and more in the relief of the indigent—though by rather novel means, which it seemed to him might take the place of the help formerly afforded by the churches, monasteries and private charity—so also his appeals on behalf of the schools were addressed more to the congregation, the authorities and the State than had been customary in the days of the Church schools. The increased share now taken by these bodies in this work, if kept within reasonable bounds, might indeed turn out advantageous, though the results did not reach his expectations, and in fact did not show themselves until much later, and then were due to factors altogether independent of Protestantism.It must also be pointed out to Luther’s credit that he at once vigorously withstood the communistic views which had begun to make their appearance even before his day, as soon as experience had opened his eyes to their dangers. He perceived the radical trend of the Anabaptists—which it is true was not without some affinity with his own doctrines. He came after a while to oppose in popular writings the extravagant social demands of the peasants, and, in spite of the crass exaggeration of his language, his tracts give many a useful hint for the improvement of existing conditions on Christian lines.The charge he brings against earlier times, viz. that, owing to the too great number of clergy and religious a premium had been placed on idleness,[2175]is perhaps not devoid of a grain of truth; nor was his complaint that the indolence of so many people who lived by the Church endangered thewelfare of the State and was opposed to the interests of the community altogether unjustified.[2176]The strongly worded passages where Luther speaks in favour of work and exhorts the authorities to cultivate and promote labour were quite in place, though it is true they can be matched by a whole row of equally vigorous admonitions by Catholic writers, dating from the Middle Ages and from the years immediately preceding Luther’s day.[2177]Owing to his having by his attacks on ecclesiastical institutions dried up many of the existing sources of charity there can be no doubt that indirectly he contributed to awaken those who were less well off to a sense of their duty to work for their own living. In this wise the sense of responsibility was aroused in the masses. The secular authorities were also obliged to intervene more frequently owing to the falling off in the support afforded by the Church to the needy and oppressed, particularly in cases where all the labour and exertion of the individual were insufficient to guarantee subsistence or legal protection. In so far therefore, viz. in regard of the growing needs of social life, it has been truly remarked that the religious revolution of the 16th century smoothed the way for the material conditions of modern society and new cultural problems; in this sense Luther assisted in bringing about the economic conditions of the present day. We shall say nothing here of the rise of the modern spirit with its rejection of authority and its principle of unrestrained intellectual freedom.Luther also helped in a certain sense to set the worldly authorities on their own feet and to make them more independent. This was an outcome of his violent struggle against the influence previously exerted over the State by the olden Church, or to speak more accurately of his assault on the Church as such, albeit it was attended by the other eminently unfortunate results. In the course of history,according to the Divine plan, new and useful elements not seldom spring up from evil seed. Owing to a too close union of the two powers and the assumption of many worldly functions by the Church, the representatives of the latter were too often exposed in their work to a not unjustifiable criticism. The Church was charged with being inefficient in her management of outward business and this detracted from the respect due to her spiritual functions; unnecessary jealousy was aroused and social developments in themselves desirable were frequently retarded. Thus, though the storm let loose by Luther wrought great devastation, yet it is not to be regretted that since then many temporal forces now transferred from the Church to the State have been set to work with satisfactory results such as might otherwise not have been attained. In some places certainly they had come into operation long before this, but speaking generally, things in this respect were still in a backward state.Important factors for judging of Luther’s social work are two ideas on which he laid great stress and which we have already discussed. One is the separation of the Church from the world, which, albeit, in very contradictory fashion, he attempted to carry out; the other is his plea that the Church, which he sought to divest of all legislative power, possessed no authority to make binding laws. What has been said already may here be summed up anew with a few more quotations to the point.We have in the first place the separation of the spiritual and supernatural. Luther’s work did great harm in the sphere of the supernatural and, so far as his influence extended, alienated society from it.[2178]His doctrine, particularly concerning the state of man, grace and good works was of such a nature as in reality to withdraw society from the supernatural atmosphere, however much he might extol the “knowledge of the free grace of God in Christ,” which he claimed had been won by his exertions.The detachment of the supernatural life expressed itself also in a systematic, jealous exclusion of any worldly meddling in the spiritual domain, for the rule of the Gospel must, according to Luther, be something quite distinct fromthe worldly rule. By his principles and his writings he materially contributed to the secularisation of society and the State. According to him Christ simply says without any reservation: “My kingdom is no business of the Roman Emperor.” The spiritual rule must be as far apart from the temporal rule “as heaven is from earth.”[2179]“What is most characteristic of the kingdom of grace,” so writes E. Luthardt, one of the best-known Lutheran moralists, who, however, fails to point out its want of clearness, “is the order of grace, whilst what is most characteristic of the kingdom of the world and the world’s life is the order of law; they are quite different in kind nor do they run on the same lines but belong to entirely different worlds. To the one I belong as a Christian, to the other as a man; for we live at once in two different spheres of life, and are at the same time in heaven and on earth.” “Each one must keep within his own limits,” and “not make of the Gospel outward laws for life in the world, for Jesus gave His law only for Christians, not for the rest.”[2180]Luthardt rightly appeals to Luther’s words: “This is what the Gospel teaches you: It has nothing to do with worldly things, but leaves them as God has already disposed them by means of the worldly authorities.” “The kingdom of Christ has nothing to do with outward things, but leaves them all unaltered to follow their own order.” “In God’s kingdom in which He rules through the Gospel there is no going to law, nor have we anything to do with law, but everything is summed up in forgiveness, remission and bestowing, and there is no anger or punishment, nothing but benevolence and service of our neighbour.” As to the temporal matters, “there the lawyers are free to help and advise how things are to be.” “If anyone were to try and rule the world according to the Gospel, just think, my good friend, what the result would be. He would break the chains and bonds that hold back the wild and savage beasts.”[2181]—It is true that he here altogether overlooks the fact that religion has, on the contrary, to help in governing the world by her moral laws, restraining the “wild and savage” elements by means of her laws, her authority and her means of grace; just as when speaking above of the two spheres of life in which man is placed he forgets that we are endowed with but one conscience and one responsibility, viz. that of the Christian, which is inseparable from man as he is at present constituted.“Now, praise be to God, all the world knows,” says Luther, of his sundering of the two spheres of life, “with what diligence and pains I have laboured and still labour to distinguish between the two offices or rules, the temporal and the spiritual, and to keep them, apart; each one now is instructed as to his own work and kept to it, whereas in Popery it was all so entangled and in such confusion that no one kept within his own powers, dominion and rights.”[2182]Protestants have found the essential difference between Protestantism and Catholicism to consist in the fact, that, according to Luther’s directions, Protestantism separates “religion and theology, faith and knowledge, morality and politics, Christianity and art,” whereas Catholicism, according to the motto of Pius X, seeks to “renew all things in Christ.” “We know that revelation has only an inward mission to the individual soul; the Catholic believes in its public mission for universal civilisation.” “We should fear for the purity of our faith and no less for morality and civilised order should these domains ever be christianised.”[2183]The result of forbidding the “spiritual rule” ever to encroach on the temporal domain was so to enfeeble the precepts of ethics as to deprive them of any real authority for making themselves felt as a power in secular government.With Luther everything is constructed without any basis of authority; he proffers, as he is fond of saying, “opinions and advice,”[2184]and even this he does without a trace of theory or method; as for binding regulations he has none; nor has he any Church behind him that can set up an obligatory ethical standard; he recognises indeed the universal priesthood, but no Church with any paramount authority in spiritual things, no hierarchy and no social institution such as the Catholic Church is. This is the chief reason why his moral instructions lack any definite and binding force over people’s minds. The great mass of mankind must be guided by clear and fixed rules, counsels which address themselves to man’s good-will are in themselves practically useless for the direction or guidance of the masses, constituted as they are. The Gospel, moreover, in spite of what Luther says to the contrary, though it brings the glad tidings of salvation and forgiveness, also contains a large number of strict moral precepts; the Divine Founder of the Church, in His wisdom, also equipped her with full power to issue, on the linestraced out by Himself, the commands called for by the needs of every age. She disposes of spiritual penalties and has the right to excommunicate offenders when this is necessary to emphasise her laws.With Luther the last resource lay in the system of the State-Church. The “Christian authorities” became the authorities of the congregations (see below, p. 579 ff.).[2185]Thus the founder of the new religion frequently requires the rulers who had rallied to his system to make use of their power in order to lend their sanction and authority to the ethical regulations he gave to his followers, and which he himself was unable to enforce.Here we shall only consider one class of cases where it was of great importance to him to see his “opinion and advice” followed. According to him, as Luthardt himself admits in his “Ethik Luthers,”[2186]“The authorities were to serve and promote the cause of the Evangel.... From this Luther went on, however, to give advice which really was at variance with his fundamental views. It is true when he demands that the rulers should not suffer any such sects as deny the rights, etc., of the authorities, he was merely imposing on them the fulfilment of one of the duties of the State,[2187]but when he requires the rulers to make use of their powers to check the scandal of heresy and false worship, which was the most horrible and dangerous form of scandal; or, when heresy had been proved from Scripture, to forbid its preaching; ‘to insist on the true worship, to punish and forbid false doctrine and idolatry and to risk everything rather than allow themselves and their people to be forced into idolatry and falsehood’; or ‘to banish from the landthose who deny such articles as the Divinity of Christ and the redemption,’ etc.; or again, when two opposing parties confront each other, as, for instance, the Lutherans and the Papists, to decide according to Scripture and forbid the party that failed to agree with Scripture to preach,[2188]—all these and similar matters are plainly based on the assumption that the ruler had a right to form an independent opinion as to whether a doctrine was or was not in accordance with Scripture, an assumption which Luther, as a matter of fact, strongly deprecates in theory. When Luther speaks in this way he is taking it for granted that he has to do with a Christian ruler, who as such does not merely perform his office of ruler like the heathen Emperor or the Grand Turk, but is influenced by the Gospel and recognises the Word of God.”Expressed in different words Luthardt’s ideas would amount to this: According to Luther it is imperative that the rulers should be good Lutherans and accept the Evangel and the Word of God as he taught it. No other Christian ruler may venture to put the above measures in force, for the truth is he is no Christian at all.This leads us to look closer into Luther’s ideas on the secular authority and the State-Church.2. The State and the State ChurchMost Protestant writers become very eloquent and go into great detail when dealing with the main ideas Luther is supposed to have expressed on the State and on social order.He maintained, so they assert, and impressed strongly on all ages to come, that the purpose of the State was to keep the peace and uphold the right against the wicked by means of legislation and penalties: “Magistratus instrumentum, per quod Deus pacem et iura conservat.”[2189]This temporal peace was the best earthly possession and comprised all temporal blessings; in point offact the “true preaching office” should, so he declared, bring peace, but with the greater number “this is not the case,”[2190]so that the authority of the ruler was necessary for the maintenance of outward peace. “This worldly government,” according to him, “preserves temporal peace, rights and life,” indeed he says it makes wild beasts into men and saves men from becoming wild beasts.[2191]The true Evangelical doctrine, unlike the earlier one, leads to the secular government being regarded as “the great gift of God and His own gracious order,”[2192]notwithstanding that all authority was instituted by God on account of the sin that reigns in man. Human reason and experience, and also the Holy Ghost, must teach the authorities how to fulfil their duty. They must, so far as this is possible, work for the common welfare of their subjects in this world. Since, according to Luther, they must punish what is evil in their subjects’ external behaviour and take care that “all public scandal be banished and removed,”[2193]their task seems to trench on morals and on religion. Good sovereigns instruct their people concerning temporal things, “how to manage their homes and farms, how to rule the land and the people, how to make money and secure possessions, how to become rich and powerful,” further, “how we are to till the fields, plough, sow, reap and keep our house.”[2194]In short the ruler must interest himself in the needs of his subjects as “though they were his very own.”[2195]The worldly rulers must provide for the support of their subjects, and particularly for the poor, the widows and orphans, and extend to them their fatherly protection.Other fine sayings of Luther’s on this subject and on the duties he assigns to the rulers are instanced in plenty.The ruler “holds the place of a father, only that his sway is more extensive, for he is not merely the father of one family, as it were, but of as many as there are inhabitants, citizens or subjects in his country.... And because they bear this name and title and look upon it as in all honour their greatest treasure, it is our duty to respect them and regard them as our dearest, most precious possession on earth.”[2196]Luther insisted in the strongest terms on the duty of obedience, more particularlyafter his experiences during the Peasant War. He emphasises very strongly, in opposition to the fanatics, that the secular Courts must rule and their authority be recognised, and also that the oath must be taken when required.He even tells the rebels: “God would rather suffer the rulers who do what is wrong than the mob whose cause is just. The reason is that when Master Omnes wields the sword and makes war on the pretence that he is in the right, things fare badly. For a Prince, if he is to remain a Prince, cannot well chop off the heads of all, though he may act unjustly and cut off the heads of some.” For he must needs retain some about him, continues Luther with a touch of humour; but when the mob is in revolt then “off go all the heads.”[2197]“Even where a ruler has pledged himself to govern his subjects in accordance with a constitution—‘according to prearranged articles’—Luther will not admit that it is lawful to deprive him of his authority should he disregard his oath.... No one has the right or the command from God to enforce a penalty in the case of the authorities.”[2198]But things ought not to reach such a pass in the case of the prince’s government. Obedience should make everything smooth for him. He cherishes and provides for all, as many as he has subjects, and may thus be called the father of them all, just as in old days the heathen called their pious rulers the fathers and saviours of the country.[2199]These ideas are not, however, peculiar to Luther. They were current long before his time and had been discussed from every point of view by Christian writers who, in turn, had borrowed them from antiquity.In all this, which, furthermore, Luther never summed up in a theory, all that is new is his original and forcible manner of putting forward his ideas. “It is hardly possible to argue,” says Frank G. Ward, one of the latest Protestant writers in this field, “that his view of the duty of the State contained anything very new.... The opinion that the State had an educational duty was held even in classical antiquity.”[2200]If it was held in Pagan times, still more so was this the case in the Christian Middle Ages. It is to classical antiquity that we just heard Luther appeal when he referred to the “pater patriæ.” He had become acquainted in the Catholic schools with the ideas of antiquity purified by Christian philosophy.Still, there is much that is really new in Luther’s views on the State and the rulers which does not come out in the passage quoted above; what is new, however, far from being applauded by modern Protestant judges, is often reprehended by them.As the accounts we had to give elsewhere were already so full it will not be necessary again to go into details; it is, however, worth while again to emphasise the conclusions already arrived at by calling attention to some data not as yet taken into consideration.In the first place one thing that was new was the energetic application made by Luther in his earlier years of his peculiar principle of the complete separation of world and Church. The State, or, rather, ordered society (for there was as yet no political State in the modern sense), was consequently de-Christianised by him, at least in principle, at least if we ignore the change which soon took place in Luther himself (see below, p. 576 f.). The proof of this de-Christianisation is found in his own statements. In his writing of 1523, “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,” he expressly told the rulers of the land that they had no concern with good people and “that it was not their business to make them pious,” but that they were only there to rule a world estranged from God, and to maintain order by force when the peace was disturbed or men suffered injustice. Amongst real Christians there would, according to Luther, be no secular rulers.[2201]Even when Luther, in this tract of which he thought so highly, is instructing a pious Christian ruler on his duties, he has nothing to say of his duty to protect and further the Church, though in earlier days all admonitions to the princes had insisted mainly on this.His view of the two powers at work in the social order was new, particularly as regards the spiritual sphere and the position of those holding authority in the Church. The believing Christians in Luther’s eyes formed merely a union of souls,[2202]without any hierarchy or a jot of spiritual authority or power; there is in fact only one power on earth qualified to issue regulations, viz. the secular power; the combination of the two powers, which had formed the basis of public order previously, was thrown over, any spiritual ruler being out of place where all the faithful were priests. There isbut a “ministry” of the word, conferred by election of the faithful, and its one duty is to bring the Gospel home to souls; it knows nothing of law, vengeance or punishment.[2203]The ministry of the Word must indeed stand, but is by no means a supervising body, in spite of the “neo-Lutheran conception of the office,” as some Protestant theologians of the present day disapprovingly call it.Carl Holl, in his “Luther und das landesherrliche Kirchenregiment” (1911), says with some truth: “Luther knows as little of a Christian State as he does of a Christian shoemaking trade”; “Our life here below is only Christian in so far as the individuals concerned are Christians. Their sphere of action is not prescribed to Christians by Christianity but rather by the divine order of nature.”[2204]—Hence the whole public congregational system, so far as it needs laws to govern it, must remain on a purely natural basis.This view is confirmed by the following odd-sounding statements of Luther’s:Among Christians the sword can have no place, “hence you cannot make use of it on or among Christians, who have no need of it”; still the world “cannot and may not do without it” (this power); in other words, as Christians, both subjects and rulers suffer injustice gladly according to the Gospel, but, for the sake of their neighbours and for the keeping of order in the world, both favour the use of force. Secular rule does not extend beyond “life and limb and what is outward on this earth.”[2205]“Our squires, our princes and our bishops, shall see what fools they are,” when they “order us to believe the Church, the Fathers and the Councils though there is no Word of God in them. It is the apostles of the devil who order such things, not the Church.” And yet “our Emperor and the clever princes are doing this now.”[2206]Hence the princes must keep to their own outward sphere, viz. only coerce the wicked, and not seek to rule over Christians.“Christians can be governed by nothing but the Word of God. For Christians must be ruled by faith, not by outward works.... Those who do not believe are not Christians, nor do they belong to the kingdom of Christ, but to the kingdom of the world, hence they must be coerced and driven with the sword and by the outward government. Christians do everything that is good of their own accord and without being compelled, and God’s Word is enough for them.”[2207]When Luther contrasts in this way the kingdom of Christ and the true life of a Christian with the temporal kingdom and the functions of the authorities, he goes so far in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,” and even in his sermons, as strongly todepreciate the secular or civil power. He teaches, for instance, that the Christian who holds the office of ruler, must do things that are forbidden to Christians as such, for instance, pronounce sentence, put to death and use other strong measures against the unruly. But all this belongs in reality to hell.—“Whoever is under the secular rule,” so we read in a curious sermon in Luther’s Church-Postils, “is still far from the kingdom of heaven, for the place where all this belongs is hell; for instance, the prince who governs his people in such a way as to allow none to suffer injustice, and no evildoer to go unrequited, does well and receives praise.... Nevertheless, as explained above, this is not appointed for those who belong to heaven but merely in order that people may not sink yet deeper into hell and make things even worse. Therefore no one who is under the secular government can boast that he is acting rightly before God; in His sight it is still all wrong”; for of Christians more is required; whoever wishes to act according to the Gospel must ever be ready to suffer injustice.[2208]But the secular authority must, either “of its own initiative or at the instance of others, without any complaint, entreaty or exertion of his, help and protect him. Where it does not he must allow himself to be fleeced and abused, and not resist evil, according to the words of Christ. And be assured that this is no counsel of perfection as our sophists lyingly and blasphemously assert, but a strict command binding on all Christians.”[2209]There is a huge gulf between the kingdom of such a Christian and that of the “jailers, hangmen, lawyers, advocates and such-like rabble.”Such are the epithets Luther flings at the secular power, the State and its ministers, whose task it is to “seek out the wicked, convict them, strangle and put them to death.”[2210]These authorities must indeed exist and a Christian must submit to them willingly—not for his own sake but for that of his neighbour, i.e. for the sake of the common good; he himself has no need of them; the behaviour of the Christian towards this secular power must be dictated by his Christian love for his neighbour.A Protestant critic writes: “Luther hardly recognises any so-called Christian State.... We find Luther warning his hearers against seeing anything particularly useful or indispensable behind the work of the government. The ruler’s sense of responsibility was to be something purely human.... The Christian in fact has no need of any ruler.”[2211]“Luther’s interestin things political (see below) is practically nil; where the State can be of any use to him he welcomes it and even gives it its meed of praise.... His appreciation of the State is usually just a matter of feeling.”[2212]We come to see that “he took no independent interest in politics.... He even goes so far as to characterise the outward order of the State as a necessary evil. State organisation in his eyes is simply a kind of enforced charity towards our neighbour.”[2213]“Luther knows no Christian State,” says another Protestant writer of Luther’s theories. “The State is as worldly a thing as eating and drinking”; indeed its commands and its deeds “all belong to hell.”[2214]This worldly bond of union is good, when, with God’s help, it follows the dictates of reason. It is the only union that exists, for Luther does not recognise State and Church as two unions. This, says Holl, is now regarded “as an axiom.”[2215]We may, it is true, admit with Holl that Luther is not quite consistent in this, but this is only because he reverts inadvertently to the old ideas, and, even in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,” incidentally speaks of a spiritual authority and of bishops in whom it is invested.[2216]Some Protestant writers, quite erroneously, extol the “Christendom” equipped with both spiritual and secular authority which Luther substituted for the twin powers of yore. It was only owing to his want of logic, and out of practical considerations for the interests of his religion (see below), that he was able to endow as he did the State with spiritual authority. And, besides, “Christendom,” to which indeed he often enough refers, had, in reality, been completely abrogated by him at least in the traditional sense, viz. of the kingdom of God on earth which embraces as in one family all the baptised. For had he not deprived baptism of its dignity and made membership of the Church dependent on the faith of the adult?“Luther drags away the corner stone on which the whole edifice [of Christendom] rests,” says Holl. “According to his teaching we are not simply baptised into the Church as was the case according to the Catholic doctrine. Baptism, indeed, even to him, constitutes the foundation of Christianity, but the grace of the sacrament is only effective in those who believe in the promises offered therein (‘Sacramenta non implentur dum fiunt, sed dum creduntur’).... Luther, by making admission into the spiritual society dependent on a personal condition, destroyed the idea of Christendom in the mediæval Catholic sense”;[2217]this Holl regards as his chief merit.This is undoubtedly so true, that, in the case of the wars against the Turks, Luther refused to hear of any “Christendom” in the traditional sense which might be pitted against the Crescent, and this on the ground that but few of the combatants were real Christians, i.e. real believers in the Evangel he preached.[2218]He also reserves the honourable title of Christians, as the headings of many of his writings show, for those who personally professed the new faith.[2219]Was Luther the Founder of the Modern State?The question seems so extraordinary, that we must hasten to say that some of Luther’s more passionate admirers have actually claimed for him that he prepared the way for the modern State.The difficulty of proving that he is really entitled to such an honour becomes obvious as soon as we recall that all modern theories of government agree in seeing the ideal community in a well-knit body with equal rights and equalliberties for all, religious freedom included. The same standard of justice applies without exception to every citizen and all religions (such at least is the programme) are esteemed alike; moreover, to this standard of justice, all, even the monarch or the supreme representative of the republic, must bow, seeing that the heads of the State have ceased to be absolute.But what, according to Luther’s theory and practice, was the position of the Lutheran ruler in respect of his civil and religious authority? How did it stand with the freedom and independence of his subjects, particularly where different religious practices co-existed?It is true that, taking his instructions to the rulers just discussed, which he derived from his principle of the separation of Church and world, we should expect him to recognise freedom of conscience. The instructions, however, though seemingly addressed to all, sprang from his opposition to the Catholic rulers. The latter, particularly in the infancy of Protestantism, were above all to be urged to grant entire liberty and not to trouble about religion; what Luther wished to impress upon them was that they had no right to interfere with the Lutheran movement within their jurisdiction.[2220]Luther spoke quite otherwise when dealing with princes who were favourable to his preaching, or who had introduced the new religious system. In proportion as the rulers and municipalities that favoured his cause grew more numerous, he came to confer on them full powers to stamp out the Catholic faith, and even made it their duty so to do. He also perceived all too well the extent to which zealous Protestant princes, such as Johann of Saxony and Philip of Hesse, could further his innovations. From that time forward he promoted the growing authority of the sovereigns over the Churches, above all by warmly defending the principle that in every country uniformity of worship and doctrine must prevail, short of which there would always be “revolts and sects,” as he said in 1526.[2221]This was, however, to destroy the main groundwork of the modern State theory, viz. the personal freedom of theindividual. It was to interfere with the evenness of justice and with the sacred right of conscience. What other rights of the subject would the sovereign regard as sacred once the door had been opened to arbitrary action in the domain of religious practice?[2222]The argument with which Luther conceals his selfish aim of securing new fields for his own religious system, and veils the real motive of his struggle against Popery, is deserving of special attention in spite of all its frivolity.

LUTHER’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS SOCIETY AND EDUCATION

Itwould be beyond our present scope to examine in detail all the views advanced concerning Luther’s social and economic attitude. Recent research in social economics has already rectified many of these.

What the historian of sociology chiefly misses is any appreciation of Luther in the light of the theories and conditions prevailing at the close of the Middle Ages. It has been remarked quite rightly, that, from the way in which the matter is dealt with in Protestant Church-history and “practical theology,” it is perfectly clear that, hitherto, the Middle Ages have in many instances been altogether misjudged.[2165]

There is still much for historical research to do in this field. Neglect to study as they deserved whole centuries of our history, prolific though they were in great things, has avenged itself by the one-sided character of the prevalent views concerning them. In the case of many writers too much attention to the verdicts pronounced by Luther on every possible occasion against the Church of the past is what is chiefly responsible for their disinclination to pursuethe matter further; they are too prone to regard things from the watch-tower of Lutheran theology. It is not so very long since hardly any paradox or calumny against the social “disorders” prevalent amongst the clergy and the monks, in family life and the commonwealth under Popery, was too monstrous, provided it had been uttered by the Wittenberg Professor, to be dished up again, though possibly under somewhat politer form, by the occupants of Protestant pulpits and chairs of theology.

Statements such as the following, taken word for word from recent works, which, following our habit, we shall refrain from naming, are based on the traditional assertions of controversy and on insufficient acquaintance with the Middle Ages.

“Luther accomplished something eminently positive when he put the State-idea on those lines which it was ultimately to follow in his own country.” For, “according to him, the duty of the State is the promotion of the general welfare.” “We have the fullest right to appeal to the spirit of his State policy, above all, because, in opposition to the mediæval view, it conceded to the State an independent status.” “The State, according to him, was to put in practice in social life the principle of ‘serving our neighbour.’”We often find all “political” as well as all “civil freedom” traced back to Luther. He it was, so we are told, who introduced, or laid the foundations for, the real mutual tolerance displayed by citizens in the State, just as he did for the principle of nationality, for scientific freedom, for the freedom for invention, and, finally, for the freedom of the Press.He “laid constant stress on charity towards our neighbour in direct contrast to the individualism of the Middle Ages, when even almsgiving resolved itself ultimately into mere selfish interest, the giver living in hope of a heavenly reward.” “He proclaimed that: Mendicancy was to be done away with.... The number of the destitute, and their claim on public benevolence he reduced to a minimum. These principles are in direct contrast with the devout and indiscriminate almsgiving of the Middle Ages and paved the way for the modern poor-law system.”“The sanctity of the home and the family had suffered severely under the influence of monasticism.” Luther had to “reorganise the methods of education in order to make, of the home and the family, institutions for the public welfare.” He became the “father of the modern National Schools.”“In his plans for the maintenance and direction of civic affairs Luther once more brought into their own the ‘principles of social responsibility.’”He set aside the mediæval “contempt for material thingsand for labour as a means of production.” Luther performed a signal service to economics by restoring respect for work; for, “maybe, there was no phenomenon of mediæval life which presented a greater obstacle to material happiness than laziness.” “Economic progress was impossible” where the theory prevailed, that “the contemplative life was of greater value than the active.” “Luther bestowed new dignity not only on work in general, but also on its every branch”; according to him “no work is degrading which serves the interests of mankind.”He was the “guardian and promoter of the interests of society,” and the “importance of his influence is still more enhanced by the fact that he showed himself a conservative and guiding spirit in the midst of social disorder and confusion of ideas.”If this holds good of the service he rendered to society as a whole, he was also within narrower limits the “reformer and restorer” of family life. His own marriage was “one of his greatest reforming acts, by which he confirmed his rehabilitation of the conjugal state, and, by his labours as a whole, he secured to marriage, and thus to the very foundation of family life, the prerogative of being a ‘divine institution.’” He brought the duties of the family into respect, whereas, formerly, “the Church, which permeated everything, had been the cause of their neglect.”“It remains an historical truth that the greatness of the German people in politics, economics and intellectual life may be traced back to those divine powers which the Reformation set free by its recognition of the free grace of God in Christ.”

“Luther accomplished something eminently positive when he put the State-idea on those lines which it was ultimately to follow in his own country.” For, “according to him, the duty of the State is the promotion of the general welfare.” “We have the fullest right to appeal to the spirit of his State policy, above all, because, in opposition to the mediæval view, it conceded to the State an independent status.” “The State, according to him, was to put in practice in social life the principle of ‘serving our neighbour.’”

We often find all “political” as well as all “civil freedom” traced back to Luther. He it was, so we are told, who introduced, or laid the foundations for, the real mutual tolerance displayed by citizens in the State, just as he did for the principle of nationality, for scientific freedom, for the freedom for invention, and, finally, for the freedom of the Press.

He “laid constant stress on charity towards our neighbour in direct contrast to the individualism of the Middle Ages, when even almsgiving resolved itself ultimately into mere selfish interest, the giver living in hope of a heavenly reward.” “He proclaimed that: Mendicancy was to be done away with.... The number of the destitute, and their claim on public benevolence he reduced to a minimum. These principles are in direct contrast with the devout and indiscriminate almsgiving of the Middle Ages and paved the way for the modern poor-law system.”

“The sanctity of the home and the family had suffered severely under the influence of monasticism.” Luther had to “reorganise the methods of education in order to make, of the home and the family, institutions for the public welfare.” He became the “father of the modern National Schools.”

“In his plans for the maintenance and direction of civic affairs Luther once more brought into their own the ‘principles of social responsibility.’”

He set aside the mediæval “contempt for material thingsand for labour as a means of production.” Luther performed a signal service to economics by restoring respect for work; for, “maybe, there was no phenomenon of mediæval life which presented a greater obstacle to material happiness than laziness.” “Economic progress was impossible” where the theory prevailed, that “the contemplative life was of greater value than the active.” “Luther bestowed new dignity not only on work in general, but also on its every branch”; according to him “no work is degrading which serves the interests of mankind.”

He was the “guardian and promoter of the interests of society,” and the “importance of his influence is still more enhanced by the fact that he showed himself a conservative and guiding spirit in the midst of social disorder and confusion of ideas.”

If this holds good of the service he rendered to society as a whole, he was also within narrower limits the “reformer and restorer” of family life. His own marriage was “one of his greatest reforming acts, by which he confirmed his rehabilitation of the conjugal state, and, by his labours as a whole, he secured to marriage, and thus to the very foundation of family life, the prerogative of being a ‘divine institution.’” He brought the duties of the family into respect, whereas, formerly, “the Church, which permeated everything, had been the cause of their neglect.”

“It remains an historical truth that the greatness of the German people in politics, economics and intellectual life may be traced back to those divine powers which the Reformation set free by its recognition of the free grace of God in Christ.”

There are, however, other Protestant scholars, who are not theologians, who regard such praise of Luther’s social importance as either quite mistaken or at least greatly exaggerated; in their opinion Luther’s services lay rather in his work for religion, and on behalf of the knowledge of God and union with Him by faith.

L. Feuchtwanger, for instance, a representative sociologist, recently spoke in tones almost ironical of the view held “by most [Protestant] Church-historians,” who praise “the religion of Luther as having produced autonomous ethics, the modern State, a society that despises idleness, the German family, in short all that is great and good.” He is of opinion that such views call for “revision”; nor would such a revision, so he says, “detract from the eminent importance of the reformation.”[2166]We shall speak later on of the proofs he adduces to show the error of the “obstinate opinion,” as he terms it, “that Protestantism created the modern system of public charity,”[2167]and that Luther brought about the regeneration of benevolence.E. Troeltsch, the Heidelberg theologian, says in “Die Bedeutungdes Protestantismus für die Entstehung der modernen Welt”: “As a matter of fact, the importance of Protestantism must not be one-sidedly exaggerated. The foundations of the modern world in the State, in society, in economics, learning and art were established in a great measure independently of Protestantism, partly as an outgrowth of the later Middle Ages, partly as the result of the Renaissance, particularly of the Renaissance as assimilated by Protestantism, partly—as in the case of the Catholic countries, Spain, Austria, Italy and especially France—after the rise of Protestantism and concurrently with it.” “With the principle of nationalism,” writes Troeltsch, “his [Luther’s] system of an established Church had no connection. The latter merely promoted the solidification and centralisation of the chief authorities, whereas the former is a product of the entirely modern democratic awakening of the masses and the romantic idea of a national spirit.” In another passage he says: “There can be no question of [Protestantism] having paved the way for the modern idea of freedom—of science, of thought, or of the press—nor of its having inspired the scholarship which it controlled with new aims, or led it to break new ground.”[2168]There are even Protestants who are disposed to deny that Luther took any interest in the State and in public affairs. “It follows from Luther’s views of life,” writes Erich Brandenburg, the author of “Luthers Anschauung vom Staate und der Gesellschaft,” that a Christian neither can nor ought to care for the outbuilding of the existing order of the State and society. For “God has thrown us into the world and put us under the rule of the devil, so that here we have no paradise but look forward hourly to every kind of misfortune to life and limb, wife and child, goods and honour.’[2169]... By the fact of his birth the Christian [according to Luther] has been given a definite place.... To seek for a better one, or to wish to create an entirely different state of things would be to rebel against the Will of God. Far from its being the Christian’s duty to strive after an improvement in the order of the State or of society, any such striving would be really sinful.” “He [Luther] regards civil life as merely one aspect of the probation which he has to endure on earth”; in his eyes the struggle for political freedom simply implies an “unlawful devotion to earthly aims, an absence of trust in God, and an attempt to create a paradise on earth by our own strength.”[2170]Where tyranny prevails one is not even allowed to emigrate, so Luther insists, unless indeed the ruler will not suffer the Evangel, when it became lawful and advisable, to seek another home.[2171]Nowadays people have a different conception,so Brandenburg points out, of national greatness and political freedom.[2172]Albert Kalthoff, a Bremen preacher, who belongs to the extreme left of the Protestant party, goes still further: “There is a considerable amount of conceit sticking to our Protestant churches, indeed the Reformation festival seems to afford it a fitting occasion for celebrating each year its orgy. What is not Protestantism supposed to have brought to the world? National freedom and prosperity, modern science and technicology, all this we hear described as the fruit of the tree of Protestant life; not long since I even read of a German professor who quite seriously ascribed the whole of our present-day civilisation to Luther.”[2173]

L. Feuchtwanger, for instance, a representative sociologist, recently spoke in tones almost ironical of the view held “by most [Protestant] Church-historians,” who praise “the religion of Luther as having produced autonomous ethics, the modern State, a society that despises idleness, the German family, in short all that is great and good.” He is of opinion that such views call for “revision”; nor would such a revision, so he says, “detract from the eminent importance of the reformation.”[2166]We shall speak later on of the proofs he adduces to show the error of the “obstinate opinion,” as he terms it, “that Protestantism created the modern system of public charity,”[2167]and that Luther brought about the regeneration of benevolence.

E. Troeltsch, the Heidelberg theologian, says in “Die Bedeutungdes Protestantismus für die Entstehung der modernen Welt”: “As a matter of fact, the importance of Protestantism must not be one-sidedly exaggerated. The foundations of the modern world in the State, in society, in economics, learning and art were established in a great measure independently of Protestantism, partly as an outgrowth of the later Middle Ages, partly as the result of the Renaissance, particularly of the Renaissance as assimilated by Protestantism, partly—as in the case of the Catholic countries, Spain, Austria, Italy and especially France—after the rise of Protestantism and concurrently with it.” “With the principle of nationalism,” writes Troeltsch, “his [Luther’s] system of an established Church had no connection. The latter merely promoted the solidification and centralisation of the chief authorities, whereas the former is a product of the entirely modern democratic awakening of the masses and the romantic idea of a national spirit.” In another passage he says: “There can be no question of [Protestantism] having paved the way for the modern idea of freedom—of science, of thought, or of the press—nor of its having inspired the scholarship which it controlled with new aims, or led it to break new ground.”[2168]

There are even Protestants who are disposed to deny that Luther took any interest in the State and in public affairs. “It follows from Luther’s views of life,” writes Erich Brandenburg, the author of “Luthers Anschauung vom Staate und der Gesellschaft,” that a Christian neither can nor ought to care for the outbuilding of the existing order of the State and society. For “God has thrown us into the world and put us under the rule of the devil, so that here we have no paradise but look forward hourly to every kind of misfortune to life and limb, wife and child, goods and honour.’[2169]... By the fact of his birth the Christian [according to Luther] has been given a definite place.... To seek for a better one, or to wish to create an entirely different state of things would be to rebel against the Will of God. Far from its being the Christian’s duty to strive after an improvement in the order of the State or of society, any such striving would be really sinful.” “He [Luther] regards civil life as merely one aspect of the probation which he has to endure on earth”; in his eyes the struggle for political freedom simply implies an “unlawful devotion to earthly aims, an absence of trust in God, and an attempt to create a paradise on earth by our own strength.”[2170]Where tyranny prevails one is not even allowed to emigrate, so Luther insists, unless indeed the ruler will not suffer the Evangel, when it became lawful and advisable, to seek another home.[2171]Nowadays people have a different conception,so Brandenburg points out, of national greatness and political freedom.[2172]

Albert Kalthoff, a Bremen preacher, who belongs to the extreme left of the Protestant party, goes still further: “There is a considerable amount of conceit sticking to our Protestant churches, indeed the Reformation festival seems to afford it a fitting occasion for celebrating each year its orgy. What is not Protestantism supposed to have brought to the world? National freedom and prosperity, modern science and technicology, all this we hear described as the fruit of the tree of Protestant life; not long since I even read of a German professor who quite seriously ascribed the whole of our present-day civilisation to Luther.”[2173]

Luther’s favourable traits in respect of social conditions, his eloquent admonitions on family life and love of our neighbour deserve a high place. There is no call again to bring forward examples after all we have quoted elsewhere. Luther is even fond of including under the “neighbourly love” of which he so frequently speaks the whole of our social activity on behalf of our fellow men.[2174]

His struggle against voluntary celibacy and renunciation of the world, however ill advised, had at least one good result, viz. that it afforded him an opportunity to speak strongly on the duties of the home, which were so often neglected, on the importance of the humble, everyday tasks involved in matrimony and the training of children, on work at home and for the community, whether in a private or a public capacity. That plentiful children were a blessing, a principle which had always been recognised in the Christian world, he insisted upon emphatically in connection with his advocacy of marriage. The keeping of the fourth commandment, which had always been regarded as the corner-stone of society, was warmly emphasised by him as regards therelations both to parents and to other secular authorities. It would be hard to gainsay that his teaching has bequeathed to Protestantism a wealth of instructions on the cultivation of family affection and the maintenance of a well-ordered household. From the first it was beneficial to the social foundations of society, and its good influence has been apparent even down to our own times. Luther’s writings and sermons, as we soon shall see, also contain some excellent admonitions against usury as well as against begging; he preaches contentment with our lot as well as honest industry; he has also much to say of relief of the poor and education of the young either for the learned professions or for life in general. In the same way that he sought to interest the community more and more in the relief of the indigent—though by rather novel means, which it seemed to him might take the place of the help formerly afforded by the churches, monasteries and private charity—so also his appeals on behalf of the schools were addressed more to the congregation, the authorities and the State than had been customary in the days of the Church schools. The increased share now taken by these bodies in this work, if kept within reasonable bounds, might indeed turn out advantageous, though the results did not reach his expectations, and in fact did not show themselves until much later, and then were due to factors altogether independent of Protestantism.

It must also be pointed out to Luther’s credit that he at once vigorously withstood the communistic views which had begun to make their appearance even before his day, as soon as experience had opened his eyes to their dangers. He perceived the radical trend of the Anabaptists—which it is true was not without some affinity with his own doctrines. He came after a while to oppose in popular writings the extravagant social demands of the peasants, and, in spite of the crass exaggeration of his language, his tracts give many a useful hint for the improvement of existing conditions on Christian lines.

The charge he brings against earlier times, viz. that, owing to the too great number of clergy and religious a premium had been placed on idleness,[2175]is perhaps not devoid of a grain of truth; nor was his complaint that the indolence of so many people who lived by the Church endangered thewelfare of the State and was opposed to the interests of the community altogether unjustified.[2176]The strongly worded passages where Luther speaks in favour of work and exhorts the authorities to cultivate and promote labour were quite in place, though it is true they can be matched by a whole row of equally vigorous admonitions by Catholic writers, dating from the Middle Ages and from the years immediately preceding Luther’s day.[2177]

Owing to his having by his attacks on ecclesiastical institutions dried up many of the existing sources of charity there can be no doubt that indirectly he contributed to awaken those who were less well off to a sense of their duty to work for their own living. In this wise the sense of responsibility was aroused in the masses. The secular authorities were also obliged to intervene more frequently owing to the falling off in the support afforded by the Church to the needy and oppressed, particularly in cases where all the labour and exertion of the individual were insufficient to guarantee subsistence or legal protection. In so far therefore, viz. in regard of the growing needs of social life, it has been truly remarked that the religious revolution of the 16th century smoothed the way for the material conditions of modern society and new cultural problems; in this sense Luther assisted in bringing about the economic conditions of the present day. We shall say nothing here of the rise of the modern spirit with its rejection of authority and its principle of unrestrained intellectual freedom.

Luther also helped in a certain sense to set the worldly authorities on their own feet and to make them more independent. This was an outcome of his violent struggle against the influence previously exerted over the State by the olden Church, or to speak more accurately of his assault on the Church as such, albeit it was attended by the other eminently unfortunate results. In the course of history,according to the Divine plan, new and useful elements not seldom spring up from evil seed. Owing to a too close union of the two powers and the assumption of many worldly functions by the Church, the representatives of the latter were too often exposed in their work to a not unjustifiable criticism. The Church was charged with being inefficient in her management of outward business and this detracted from the respect due to her spiritual functions; unnecessary jealousy was aroused and social developments in themselves desirable were frequently retarded. Thus, though the storm let loose by Luther wrought great devastation, yet it is not to be regretted that since then many temporal forces now transferred from the Church to the State have been set to work with satisfactory results such as might otherwise not have been attained. In some places certainly they had come into operation long before this, but speaking generally, things in this respect were still in a backward state.

Important factors for judging of Luther’s social work are two ideas on which he laid great stress and which we have already discussed. One is the separation of the Church from the world, which, albeit, in very contradictory fashion, he attempted to carry out; the other is his plea that the Church, which he sought to divest of all legislative power, possessed no authority to make binding laws. What has been said already may here be summed up anew with a few more quotations to the point.

We have in the first place the separation of the spiritual and supernatural. Luther’s work did great harm in the sphere of the supernatural and, so far as his influence extended, alienated society from it.[2178]His doctrine, particularly concerning the state of man, grace and good works was of such a nature as in reality to withdraw society from the supernatural atmosphere, however much he might extol the “knowledge of the free grace of God in Christ,” which he claimed had been won by his exertions.

The detachment of the supernatural life expressed itself also in a systematic, jealous exclusion of any worldly meddling in the spiritual domain, for the rule of the Gospel must, according to Luther, be something quite distinct fromthe worldly rule. By his principles and his writings he materially contributed to the secularisation of society and the State. According to him Christ simply says without any reservation: “My kingdom is no business of the Roman Emperor.” The spiritual rule must be as far apart from the temporal rule “as heaven is from earth.”[2179]

“What is most characteristic of the kingdom of grace,” so writes E. Luthardt, one of the best-known Lutheran moralists, who, however, fails to point out its want of clearness, “is the order of grace, whilst what is most characteristic of the kingdom of the world and the world’s life is the order of law; they are quite different in kind nor do they run on the same lines but belong to entirely different worlds. To the one I belong as a Christian, to the other as a man; for we live at once in two different spheres of life, and are at the same time in heaven and on earth.” “Each one must keep within his own limits,” and “not make of the Gospel outward laws for life in the world, for Jesus gave His law only for Christians, not for the rest.”[2180]

Luthardt rightly appeals to Luther’s words: “This is what the Gospel teaches you: It has nothing to do with worldly things, but leaves them as God has already disposed them by means of the worldly authorities.” “The kingdom of Christ has nothing to do with outward things, but leaves them all unaltered to follow their own order.” “In God’s kingdom in which He rules through the Gospel there is no going to law, nor have we anything to do with law, but everything is summed up in forgiveness, remission and bestowing, and there is no anger or punishment, nothing but benevolence and service of our neighbour.” As to the temporal matters, “there the lawyers are free to help and advise how things are to be.” “If anyone were to try and rule the world according to the Gospel, just think, my good friend, what the result would be. He would break the chains and bonds that hold back the wild and savage beasts.”[2181]—It is true that he here altogether overlooks the fact that religion has, on the contrary, to help in governing the world by her moral laws, restraining the “wild and savage” elements by means of her laws, her authority and her means of grace; just as when speaking above of the two spheres of life in which man is placed he forgets that we are endowed with but one conscience and one responsibility, viz. that of the Christian, which is inseparable from man as he is at present constituted.“Now, praise be to God, all the world knows,” says Luther, of his sundering of the two spheres of life, “with what diligence and pains I have laboured and still labour to distinguish between the two offices or rules, the temporal and the spiritual, and to keep them, apart; each one now is instructed as to his own work and kept to it, whereas in Popery it was all so entangled and in such confusion that no one kept within his own powers, dominion and rights.”[2182]Protestants have found the essential difference between Protestantism and Catholicism to consist in the fact, that, according to Luther’s directions, Protestantism separates “religion and theology, faith and knowledge, morality and politics, Christianity and art,” whereas Catholicism, according to the motto of Pius X, seeks to “renew all things in Christ.” “We know that revelation has only an inward mission to the individual soul; the Catholic believes in its public mission for universal civilisation.” “We should fear for the purity of our faith and no less for morality and civilised order should these domains ever be christianised.”[2183]

Luthardt rightly appeals to Luther’s words: “This is what the Gospel teaches you: It has nothing to do with worldly things, but leaves them as God has already disposed them by means of the worldly authorities.” “The kingdom of Christ has nothing to do with outward things, but leaves them all unaltered to follow their own order.” “In God’s kingdom in which He rules through the Gospel there is no going to law, nor have we anything to do with law, but everything is summed up in forgiveness, remission and bestowing, and there is no anger or punishment, nothing but benevolence and service of our neighbour.” As to the temporal matters, “there the lawyers are free to help and advise how things are to be.” “If anyone were to try and rule the world according to the Gospel, just think, my good friend, what the result would be. He would break the chains and bonds that hold back the wild and savage beasts.”[2181]—It is true that he here altogether overlooks the fact that religion has, on the contrary, to help in governing the world by her moral laws, restraining the “wild and savage” elements by means of her laws, her authority and her means of grace; just as when speaking above of the two spheres of life in which man is placed he forgets that we are endowed with but one conscience and one responsibility, viz. that of the Christian, which is inseparable from man as he is at present constituted.

“Now, praise be to God, all the world knows,” says Luther, of his sundering of the two spheres of life, “with what diligence and pains I have laboured and still labour to distinguish between the two offices or rules, the temporal and the spiritual, and to keep them, apart; each one now is instructed as to his own work and kept to it, whereas in Popery it was all so entangled and in such confusion that no one kept within his own powers, dominion and rights.”[2182]

Protestants have found the essential difference between Protestantism and Catholicism to consist in the fact, that, according to Luther’s directions, Protestantism separates “religion and theology, faith and knowledge, morality and politics, Christianity and art,” whereas Catholicism, according to the motto of Pius X, seeks to “renew all things in Christ.” “We know that revelation has only an inward mission to the individual soul; the Catholic believes in its public mission for universal civilisation.” “We should fear for the purity of our faith and no less for morality and civilised order should these domains ever be christianised.”[2183]

The result of forbidding the “spiritual rule” ever to encroach on the temporal domain was so to enfeeble the precepts of ethics as to deprive them of any real authority for making themselves felt as a power in secular government.

With Luther everything is constructed without any basis of authority; he proffers, as he is fond of saying, “opinions and advice,”[2184]and even this he does without a trace of theory or method; as for binding regulations he has none; nor has he any Church behind him that can set up an obligatory ethical standard; he recognises indeed the universal priesthood, but no Church with any paramount authority in spiritual things, no hierarchy and no social institution such as the Catholic Church is. This is the chief reason why his moral instructions lack any definite and binding force over people’s minds. The great mass of mankind must be guided by clear and fixed rules, counsels which address themselves to man’s good-will are in themselves practically useless for the direction or guidance of the masses, constituted as they are. The Gospel, moreover, in spite of what Luther says to the contrary, though it brings the glad tidings of salvation and forgiveness, also contains a large number of strict moral precepts; the Divine Founder of the Church, in His wisdom, also equipped her with full power to issue, on the linestraced out by Himself, the commands called for by the needs of every age. She disposes of spiritual penalties and has the right to excommunicate offenders when this is necessary to emphasise her laws.

With Luther the last resource lay in the system of the State-Church. The “Christian authorities” became the authorities of the congregations (see below, p. 579 ff.).[2185]Thus the founder of the new religion frequently requires the rulers who had rallied to his system to make use of their power in order to lend their sanction and authority to the ethical regulations he gave to his followers, and which he himself was unable to enforce.

Here we shall only consider one class of cases where it was of great importance to him to see his “opinion and advice” followed. According to him, as Luthardt himself admits in his “Ethik Luthers,”[2186]“The authorities were to serve and promote the cause of the Evangel.... From this Luther went on, however, to give advice which really was at variance with his fundamental views. It is true when he demands that the rulers should not suffer any such sects as deny the rights, etc., of the authorities, he was merely imposing on them the fulfilment of one of the duties of the State,[2187]but when he requires the rulers to make use of their powers to check the scandal of heresy and false worship, which was the most horrible and dangerous form of scandal; or, when heresy had been proved from Scripture, to forbid its preaching; ‘to insist on the true worship, to punish and forbid false doctrine and idolatry and to risk everything rather than allow themselves and their people to be forced into idolatry and falsehood’; or ‘to banish from the landthose who deny such articles as the Divinity of Christ and the redemption,’ etc.; or again, when two opposing parties confront each other, as, for instance, the Lutherans and the Papists, to decide according to Scripture and forbid the party that failed to agree with Scripture to preach,[2188]—all these and similar matters are plainly based on the assumption that the ruler had a right to form an independent opinion as to whether a doctrine was or was not in accordance with Scripture, an assumption which Luther, as a matter of fact, strongly deprecates in theory. When Luther speaks in this way he is taking it for granted that he has to do with a Christian ruler, who as such does not merely perform his office of ruler like the heathen Emperor or the Grand Turk, but is influenced by the Gospel and recognises the Word of God.”

Expressed in different words Luthardt’s ideas would amount to this: According to Luther it is imperative that the rulers should be good Lutherans and accept the Evangel and the Word of God as he taught it. No other Christian ruler may venture to put the above measures in force, for the truth is he is no Christian at all.

This leads us to look closer into Luther’s ideas on the secular authority and the State-Church.

Most Protestant writers become very eloquent and go into great detail when dealing with the main ideas Luther is supposed to have expressed on the State and on social order.

He maintained, so they assert, and impressed strongly on all ages to come, that the purpose of the State was to keep the peace and uphold the right against the wicked by means of legislation and penalties: “Magistratus instrumentum, per quod Deus pacem et iura conservat.”[2189]This temporal peace was the best earthly possession and comprised all temporal blessings; in point offact the “true preaching office” should, so he declared, bring peace, but with the greater number “this is not the case,”[2190]so that the authority of the ruler was necessary for the maintenance of outward peace. “This worldly government,” according to him, “preserves temporal peace, rights and life,” indeed he says it makes wild beasts into men and saves men from becoming wild beasts.[2191]The true Evangelical doctrine, unlike the earlier one, leads to the secular government being regarded as “the great gift of God and His own gracious order,”[2192]notwithstanding that all authority was instituted by God on account of the sin that reigns in man. Human reason and experience, and also the Holy Ghost, must teach the authorities how to fulfil their duty. They must, so far as this is possible, work for the common welfare of their subjects in this world. Since, according to Luther, they must punish what is evil in their subjects’ external behaviour and take care that “all public scandal be banished and removed,”[2193]their task seems to trench on morals and on religion. Good sovereigns instruct their people concerning temporal things, “how to manage their homes and farms, how to rule the land and the people, how to make money and secure possessions, how to become rich and powerful,” further, “how we are to till the fields, plough, sow, reap and keep our house.”[2194]In short the ruler must interest himself in the needs of his subjects as “though they were his very own.”[2195]The worldly rulers must provide for the support of their subjects, and particularly for the poor, the widows and orphans, and extend to them their fatherly protection.Other fine sayings of Luther’s on this subject and on the duties he assigns to the rulers are instanced in plenty.The ruler “holds the place of a father, only that his sway is more extensive, for he is not merely the father of one family, as it were, but of as many as there are inhabitants, citizens or subjects in his country.... And because they bear this name and title and look upon it as in all honour their greatest treasure, it is our duty to respect them and regard them as our dearest, most precious possession on earth.”[2196]Luther insisted in the strongest terms on the duty of obedience, more particularlyafter his experiences during the Peasant War. He emphasises very strongly, in opposition to the fanatics, that the secular Courts must rule and their authority be recognised, and also that the oath must be taken when required.He even tells the rebels: “God would rather suffer the rulers who do what is wrong than the mob whose cause is just. The reason is that when Master Omnes wields the sword and makes war on the pretence that he is in the right, things fare badly. For a Prince, if he is to remain a Prince, cannot well chop off the heads of all, though he may act unjustly and cut off the heads of some.” For he must needs retain some about him, continues Luther with a touch of humour; but when the mob is in revolt then “off go all the heads.”[2197]“Even where a ruler has pledged himself to govern his subjects in accordance with a constitution—‘according to prearranged articles’—Luther will not admit that it is lawful to deprive him of his authority should he disregard his oath.... No one has the right or the command from God to enforce a penalty in the case of the authorities.”[2198]But things ought not to reach such a pass in the case of the prince’s government. Obedience should make everything smooth for him. He cherishes and provides for all, as many as he has subjects, and may thus be called the father of them all, just as in old days the heathen called their pious rulers the fathers and saviours of the country.[2199]

He maintained, so they assert, and impressed strongly on all ages to come, that the purpose of the State was to keep the peace and uphold the right against the wicked by means of legislation and penalties: “Magistratus instrumentum, per quod Deus pacem et iura conservat.”[2189]This temporal peace was the best earthly possession and comprised all temporal blessings; in point offact the “true preaching office” should, so he declared, bring peace, but with the greater number “this is not the case,”[2190]so that the authority of the ruler was necessary for the maintenance of outward peace. “This worldly government,” according to him, “preserves temporal peace, rights and life,” indeed he says it makes wild beasts into men and saves men from becoming wild beasts.[2191]The true Evangelical doctrine, unlike the earlier one, leads to the secular government being regarded as “the great gift of God and His own gracious order,”[2192]notwithstanding that all authority was instituted by God on account of the sin that reigns in man. Human reason and experience, and also the Holy Ghost, must teach the authorities how to fulfil their duty. They must, so far as this is possible, work for the common welfare of their subjects in this world. Since, according to Luther, they must punish what is evil in their subjects’ external behaviour and take care that “all public scandal be banished and removed,”[2193]their task seems to trench on morals and on religion. Good sovereigns instruct their people concerning temporal things, “how to manage their homes and farms, how to rule the land and the people, how to make money and secure possessions, how to become rich and powerful,” further, “how we are to till the fields, plough, sow, reap and keep our house.”[2194]In short the ruler must interest himself in the needs of his subjects as “though they were his very own.”[2195]The worldly rulers must provide for the support of their subjects, and particularly for the poor, the widows and orphans, and extend to them their fatherly protection.

Other fine sayings of Luther’s on this subject and on the duties he assigns to the rulers are instanced in plenty.

The ruler “holds the place of a father, only that his sway is more extensive, for he is not merely the father of one family, as it were, but of as many as there are inhabitants, citizens or subjects in his country.... And because they bear this name and title and look upon it as in all honour their greatest treasure, it is our duty to respect them and regard them as our dearest, most precious possession on earth.”[2196]Luther insisted in the strongest terms on the duty of obedience, more particularlyafter his experiences during the Peasant War. He emphasises very strongly, in opposition to the fanatics, that the secular Courts must rule and their authority be recognised, and also that the oath must be taken when required.

He even tells the rebels: “God would rather suffer the rulers who do what is wrong than the mob whose cause is just. The reason is that when Master Omnes wields the sword and makes war on the pretence that he is in the right, things fare badly. For a Prince, if he is to remain a Prince, cannot well chop off the heads of all, though he may act unjustly and cut off the heads of some.” For he must needs retain some about him, continues Luther with a touch of humour; but when the mob is in revolt then “off go all the heads.”[2197]“Even where a ruler has pledged himself to govern his subjects in accordance with a constitution—‘according to prearranged articles’—Luther will not admit that it is lawful to deprive him of his authority should he disregard his oath.... No one has the right or the command from God to enforce a penalty in the case of the authorities.”[2198]But things ought not to reach such a pass in the case of the prince’s government. Obedience should make everything smooth for him. He cherishes and provides for all, as many as he has subjects, and may thus be called the father of them all, just as in old days the heathen called their pious rulers the fathers and saviours of the country.[2199]

These ideas are not, however, peculiar to Luther. They were current long before his time and had been discussed from every point of view by Christian writers who, in turn, had borrowed them from antiquity.

In all this, which, furthermore, Luther never summed up in a theory, all that is new is his original and forcible manner of putting forward his ideas. “It is hardly possible to argue,” says Frank G. Ward, one of the latest Protestant writers in this field, “that his view of the duty of the State contained anything very new.... The opinion that the State had an educational duty was held even in classical antiquity.”[2200]If it was held in Pagan times, still more so was this the case in the Christian Middle Ages. It is to classical antiquity that we just heard Luther appeal when he referred to the “pater patriæ.” He had become acquainted in the Catholic schools with the ideas of antiquity purified by Christian philosophy.

Still, there is much that is really new in Luther’s views on the State and the rulers which does not come out in the passage quoted above; what is new, however, far from being applauded by modern Protestant judges, is often reprehended by them.

As the accounts we had to give elsewhere were already so full it will not be necessary again to go into details; it is, however, worth while again to emphasise the conclusions already arrived at by calling attention to some data not as yet taken into consideration.

In the first place one thing that was new was the energetic application made by Luther in his earlier years of his peculiar principle of the complete separation of world and Church. The State, or, rather, ordered society (for there was as yet no political State in the modern sense), was consequently de-Christianised by him, at least in principle, at least if we ignore the change which soon took place in Luther himself (see below, p. 576 f.). The proof of this de-Christianisation is found in his own statements. In his writing of 1523, “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,” he expressly told the rulers of the land that they had no concern with good people and “that it was not their business to make them pious,” but that they were only there to rule a world estranged from God, and to maintain order by force when the peace was disturbed or men suffered injustice. Amongst real Christians there would, according to Luther, be no secular rulers.[2201]Even when Luther, in this tract of which he thought so highly, is instructing a pious Christian ruler on his duties, he has nothing to say of his duty to protect and further the Church, though in earlier days all admonitions to the princes had insisted mainly on this.

His view of the two powers at work in the social order was new, particularly as regards the spiritual sphere and the position of those holding authority in the Church. The believing Christians in Luther’s eyes formed merely a union of souls,[2202]without any hierarchy or a jot of spiritual authority or power; there is in fact only one power on earth qualified to issue regulations, viz. the secular power; the combination of the two powers, which had formed the basis of public order previously, was thrown over, any spiritual ruler being out of place where all the faithful were priests. There isbut a “ministry” of the word, conferred by election of the faithful, and its one duty is to bring the Gospel home to souls; it knows nothing of law, vengeance or punishment.[2203]The ministry of the Word must indeed stand, but is by no means a supervising body, in spite of the “neo-Lutheran conception of the office,” as some Protestant theologians of the present day disapprovingly call it.

Carl Holl, in his “Luther und das landesherrliche Kirchenregiment” (1911), says with some truth: “Luther knows as little of a Christian State as he does of a Christian shoemaking trade”; “Our life here below is only Christian in so far as the individuals concerned are Christians. Their sphere of action is not prescribed to Christians by Christianity but rather by the divine order of nature.”[2204]—Hence the whole public congregational system, so far as it needs laws to govern it, must remain on a purely natural basis.This view is confirmed by the following odd-sounding statements of Luther’s:Among Christians the sword can have no place, “hence you cannot make use of it on or among Christians, who have no need of it”; still the world “cannot and may not do without it” (this power); in other words, as Christians, both subjects and rulers suffer injustice gladly according to the Gospel, but, for the sake of their neighbours and for the keeping of order in the world, both favour the use of force. Secular rule does not extend beyond “life and limb and what is outward on this earth.”[2205]“Our squires, our princes and our bishops, shall see what fools they are,” when they “order us to believe the Church, the Fathers and the Councils though there is no Word of God in them. It is the apostles of the devil who order such things, not the Church.” And yet “our Emperor and the clever princes are doing this now.”[2206]Hence the princes must keep to their own outward sphere, viz. only coerce the wicked, and not seek to rule over Christians.“Christians can be governed by nothing but the Word of God. For Christians must be ruled by faith, not by outward works.... Those who do not believe are not Christians, nor do they belong to the kingdom of Christ, but to the kingdom of the world, hence they must be coerced and driven with the sword and by the outward government. Christians do everything that is good of their own accord and without being compelled, and God’s Word is enough for them.”[2207]When Luther contrasts in this way the kingdom of Christ and the true life of a Christian with the temporal kingdom and the functions of the authorities, he goes so far in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,” and even in his sermons, as strongly todepreciate the secular or civil power. He teaches, for instance, that the Christian who holds the office of ruler, must do things that are forbidden to Christians as such, for instance, pronounce sentence, put to death and use other strong measures against the unruly. But all this belongs in reality to hell.—“Whoever is under the secular rule,” so we read in a curious sermon in Luther’s Church-Postils, “is still far from the kingdom of heaven, for the place where all this belongs is hell; for instance, the prince who governs his people in such a way as to allow none to suffer injustice, and no evildoer to go unrequited, does well and receives praise.... Nevertheless, as explained above, this is not appointed for those who belong to heaven but merely in order that people may not sink yet deeper into hell and make things even worse. Therefore no one who is under the secular government can boast that he is acting rightly before God; in His sight it is still all wrong”; for of Christians more is required; whoever wishes to act according to the Gospel must ever be ready to suffer injustice.[2208]But the secular authority must, either “of its own initiative or at the instance of others, without any complaint, entreaty or exertion of his, help and protect him. Where it does not he must allow himself to be fleeced and abused, and not resist evil, according to the words of Christ. And be assured that this is no counsel of perfection as our sophists lyingly and blasphemously assert, but a strict command binding on all Christians.”[2209]There is a huge gulf between the kingdom of such a Christian and that of the “jailers, hangmen, lawyers, advocates and such-like rabble.”Such are the epithets Luther flings at the secular power, the State and its ministers, whose task it is to “seek out the wicked, convict them, strangle and put them to death.”[2210]These authorities must indeed exist and a Christian must submit to them willingly—not for his own sake but for that of his neighbour, i.e. for the sake of the common good; he himself has no need of them; the behaviour of the Christian towards this secular power must be dictated by his Christian love for his neighbour.A Protestant critic writes: “Luther hardly recognises any so-called Christian State.... We find Luther warning his hearers against seeing anything particularly useful or indispensable behind the work of the government. The ruler’s sense of responsibility was to be something purely human.... The Christian in fact has no need of any ruler.”[2211]“Luther’s interestin things political (see below) is practically nil; where the State can be of any use to him he welcomes it and even gives it its meed of praise.... His appreciation of the State is usually just a matter of feeling.”[2212]We come to see that “he took no independent interest in politics.... He even goes so far as to characterise the outward order of the State as a necessary evil. State organisation in his eyes is simply a kind of enforced charity towards our neighbour.”[2213]“Luther knows no Christian State,” says another Protestant writer of Luther’s theories. “The State is as worldly a thing as eating and drinking”; indeed its commands and its deeds “all belong to hell.”[2214]This worldly bond of union is good, when, with God’s help, it follows the dictates of reason. It is the only union that exists, for Luther does not recognise State and Church as two unions. This, says Holl, is now regarded “as an axiom.”[2215]We may, it is true, admit with Holl that Luther is not quite consistent in this, but this is only because he reverts inadvertently to the old ideas, and, even in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,” incidentally speaks of a spiritual authority and of bishops in whom it is invested.[2216]

Carl Holl, in his “Luther und das landesherrliche Kirchenregiment” (1911), says with some truth: “Luther knows as little of a Christian State as he does of a Christian shoemaking trade”; “Our life here below is only Christian in so far as the individuals concerned are Christians. Their sphere of action is not prescribed to Christians by Christianity but rather by the divine order of nature.”[2204]—Hence the whole public congregational system, so far as it needs laws to govern it, must remain on a purely natural basis.

This view is confirmed by the following odd-sounding statements of Luther’s:

Among Christians the sword can have no place, “hence you cannot make use of it on or among Christians, who have no need of it”; still the world “cannot and may not do without it” (this power); in other words, as Christians, both subjects and rulers suffer injustice gladly according to the Gospel, but, for the sake of their neighbours and for the keeping of order in the world, both favour the use of force. Secular rule does not extend beyond “life and limb and what is outward on this earth.”[2205]“Our squires, our princes and our bishops, shall see what fools they are,” when they “order us to believe the Church, the Fathers and the Councils though there is no Word of God in them. It is the apostles of the devil who order such things, not the Church.” And yet “our Emperor and the clever princes are doing this now.”[2206]Hence the princes must keep to their own outward sphere, viz. only coerce the wicked, and not seek to rule over Christians.

“Christians can be governed by nothing but the Word of God. For Christians must be ruled by faith, not by outward works.... Those who do not believe are not Christians, nor do they belong to the kingdom of Christ, but to the kingdom of the world, hence they must be coerced and driven with the sword and by the outward government. Christians do everything that is good of their own accord and without being compelled, and God’s Word is enough for them.”[2207]

When Luther contrasts in this way the kingdom of Christ and the true life of a Christian with the temporal kingdom and the functions of the authorities, he goes so far in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,” and even in his sermons, as strongly todepreciate the secular or civil power. He teaches, for instance, that the Christian who holds the office of ruler, must do things that are forbidden to Christians as such, for instance, pronounce sentence, put to death and use other strong measures against the unruly. But all this belongs in reality to hell.—“Whoever is under the secular rule,” so we read in a curious sermon in Luther’s Church-Postils, “is still far from the kingdom of heaven, for the place where all this belongs is hell; for instance, the prince who governs his people in such a way as to allow none to suffer injustice, and no evildoer to go unrequited, does well and receives praise.... Nevertheless, as explained above, this is not appointed for those who belong to heaven but merely in order that people may not sink yet deeper into hell and make things even worse. Therefore no one who is under the secular government can boast that he is acting rightly before God; in His sight it is still all wrong”; for of Christians more is required; whoever wishes to act according to the Gospel must ever be ready to suffer injustice.[2208]But the secular authority must, either “of its own initiative or at the instance of others, without any complaint, entreaty or exertion of his, help and protect him. Where it does not he must allow himself to be fleeced and abused, and not resist evil, according to the words of Christ. And be assured that this is no counsel of perfection as our sophists lyingly and blasphemously assert, but a strict command binding on all Christians.”[2209]There is a huge gulf between the kingdom of such a Christian and that of the “jailers, hangmen, lawyers, advocates and such-like rabble.”

Such are the epithets Luther flings at the secular power, the State and its ministers, whose task it is to “seek out the wicked, convict them, strangle and put them to death.”[2210]These authorities must indeed exist and a Christian must submit to them willingly—not for his own sake but for that of his neighbour, i.e. for the sake of the common good; he himself has no need of them; the behaviour of the Christian towards this secular power must be dictated by his Christian love for his neighbour.

A Protestant critic writes: “Luther hardly recognises any so-called Christian State.... We find Luther warning his hearers against seeing anything particularly useful or indispensable behind the work of the government. The ruler’s sense of responsibility was to be something purely human.... The Christian in fact has no need of any ruler.”[2211]“Luther’s interestin things political (see below) is practically nil; where the State can be of any use to him he welcomes it and even gives it its meed of praise.... His appreciation of the State is usually just a matter of feeling.”[2212]We come to see that “he took no independent interest in politics.... He even goes so far as to characterise the outward order of the State as a necessary evil. State organisation in his eyes is simply a kind of enforced charity towards our neighbour.”[2213]

“Luther knows no Christian State,” says another Protestant writer of Luther’s theories. “The State is as worldly a thing as eating and drinking”; indeed its commands and its deeds “all belong to hell.”[2214]

This worldly bond of union is good, when, with God’s help, it follows the dictates of reason. It is the only union that exists, for Luther does not recognise State and Church as two unions. This, says Holl, is now regarded “as an axiom.”[2215]We may, it is true, admit with Holl that Luther is not quite consistent in this, but this is only because he reverts inadvertently to the old ideas, and, even in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,” incidentally speaks of a spiritual authority and of bishops in whom it is invested.[2216]

Some Protestant writers, quite erroneously, extol the “Christendom” equipped with both spiritual and secular authority which Luther substituted for the twin powers of yore. It was only owing to his want of logic, and out of practical considerations for the interests of his religion (see below), that he was able to endow as he did the State with spiritual authority. And, besides, “Christendom,” to which indeed he often enough refers, had, in reality, been completely abrogated by him at least in the traditional sense, viz. of the kingdom of God on earth which embraces as in one family all the baptised. For had he not deprived baptism of its dignity and made membership of the Church dependent on the faith of the adult?

“Luther drags away the corner stone on which the whole edifice [of Christendom] rests,” says Holl. “According to his teaching we are not simply baptised into the Church as was the case according to the Catholic doctrine. Baptism, indeed, even to him, constitutes the foundation of Christianity, but the grace of the sacrament is only effective in those who believe in the promises offered therein (‘Sacramenta non implentur dum fiunt, sed dum creduntur’).... Luther, by making admission into the spiritual society dependent on a personal condition, destroyed the idea of Christendom in the mediæval Catholic sense”;[2217]this Holl regards as his chief merit.

This is undoubtedly so true, that, in the case of the wars against the Turks, Luther refused to hear of any “Christendom” in the traditional sense which might be pitted against the Crescent, and this on the ground that but few of the combatants were real Christians, i.e. real believers in the Evangel he preached.[2218]He also reserves the honourable title of Christians, as the headings of many of his writings show, for those who personally professed the new faith.[2219]

The question seems so extraordinary, that we must hasten to say that some of Luther’s more passionate admirers have actually claimed for him that he prepared the way for the modern State.

The difficulty of proving that he is really entitled to such an honour becomes obvious as soon as we recall that all modern theories of government agree in seeing the ideal community in a well-knit body with equal rights and equalliberties for all, religious freedom included. The same standard of justice applies without exception to every citizen and all religions (such at least is the programme) are esteemed alike; moreover, to this standard of justice, all, even the monarch or the supreme representative of the republic, must bow, seeing that the heads of the State have ceased to be absolute.

But what, according to Luther’s theory and practice, was the position of the Lutheran ruler in respect of his civil and religious authority? How did it stand with the freedom and independence of his subjects, particularly where different religious practices co-existed?

It is true that, taking his instructions to the rulers just discussed, which he derived from his principle of the separation of Church and world, we should expect him to recognise freedom of conscience. The instructions, however, though seemingly addressed to all, sprang from his opposition to the Catholic rulers. The latter, particularly in the infancy of Protestantism, were above all to be urged to grant entire liberty and not to trouble about religion; what Luther wished to impress upon them was that they had no right to interfere with the Lutheran movement within their jurisdiction.[2220]

Luther spoke quite otherwise when dealing with princes who were favourable to his preaching, or who had introduced the new religious system. In proportion as the rulers and municipalities that favoured his cause grew more numerous, he came to confer on them full powers to stamp out the Catholic faith, and even made it their duty so to do. He also perceived all too well the extent to which zealous Protestant princes, such as Johann of Saxony and Philip of Hesse, could further his innovations. From that time forward he promoted the growing authority of the sovereigns over the Churches, above all by warmly defending the principle that in every country uniformity of worship and doctrine must prevail, short of which there would always be “revolts and sects,” as he said in 1526.[2221]

This was, however, to destroy the main groundwork of the modern State theory, viz. the personal freedom of theindividual. It was to interfere with the evenness of justice and with the sacred right of conscience. What other rights of the subject would the sovereign regard as sacred once the door had been opened to arbitrary action in the domain of religious practice?[2222]

The argument with which Luther conceals his selfish aim of securing new fields for his own religious system, and veils the real motive of his struggle against Popery, is deserving of special attention in spite of all its frivolity.

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