According to Luther’s new modification of his views each locality was to have but one form of worship. Any divergency in preaching or worship must always sow the seeds of dissension, revolt and mob-law; the authorities ought not to permit such a state of things if they valued the preservation of order; so as to insure uniformity of preaching and worship dissenting preachers must be removed. It was for this reason that the inhabitants of Nuremberg had “silenced their monks and shut up their monasteries.”[2223]In this way, encouraged by the wisdom of a “prudent” town-council, which did not look beyond the city walls, Luther came to make his notorious request to his sovereign, viz. that Catholics who remained true to their faith should be banished from the country; for “madcaps,” who refuse to take the proposed arrangement in good part and in the spirit of Christian charity, are not to be suffered among Christians but must be swept away like “chaff from the threshing floor.”[2224]As though the secular power had not even then ample means at its disposal for checking or punishing any real disturbance of the peace on the part of a congregation. At the present day we can afford to smile at the strange reason assigned for measures so far-reaching against innocent citizens of the State; the assertionthat difference of worship gives rise to unendurable discord sounds ridiculous to one used to the principles of liberty paramount in the civilised States of to-day. At any rate, this dictum did not make of Luther the founder of the modern State.In strange contrast with the modern ideas of justice is the excuse he brings forward to vindicate the violent conversion to Protestantism so often practised by the magistrates or petty rulers in their own territories. “What is done by the regular authorities is not to be regarded as revolt.”[2225]Is it really a fact that subversion and violence cease to be wrong when practised by the regular authorities? The modern State—in theory at any rate—recognises no such principle.It must be added, that both Luther and the princes devoted to him were fond of declaring that the really Christian rulers were bound to put an end to insults and blasphemies against God, regardless of any disturbance of civil life which might ensue. Luther made a beginning by exhorting the sovereign and the congregation to abolish the Mass at Wittenberg which, like Catholic worship in general, was a perpetual blasphemy of God. “The regular authorities” must rise up against “such blasphemy.” The scandal given being public, no indulgence was to be shown by Christians.[2226]Eventually every false doctrine was accounted a public scandal, i.e. every opinion expressed in writings or sermons which deviated from the true Evangel. “It is the duty” of the authorities, he says, “to punish public blasphemers ... and in the same way they should punish, or at least not brook, those who teach that Christ did not die for our sins, but that each one must make satisfaction for himself.”[2227]This, according to him, was notoriously the teaching of the Catholics.But if the Papists and the Lutherans as they are called, “preach against each other in a parish, town or district” and neither party will yield, “then let the authorities step in and try the case, and whichever party does not agree with Scripture, let him be ordered to hold his tongue.”[2228]Thus the official delegated by the prince—where the prince himself was loath to take the chair—is to decide which is the true meaning of the Bible, and which party really conforms to it.How opposed this was to the ground principles of the modern State it is scarcely necessary to point out here. The freedompostulated by the latter was absolutely unknown to Luther; had his mind ever risen to such heights he would never have proposed the farcical Bible examination to be held by the authorities.The relation between such demands as these and Luther’s own former attitude has not escaped the censure of Protestant writers.“Luther here contradicts himself,” remarks Drews;[2229]“as late as 1524 he had said that men must be allowed to disagree, and a year later that the authorities have no right to prevent every man from ‘teaching and believing whatever he wished, whether it be Gospel or lie’; it was sufficient if they checked the preaching of rebellion and any disturbance of the peace.”[2230]The Elector Johann Frederick of Saxony adopted the view that uniformity of doctrine was called for. He would, so he declared, “recognise or tolerate no sects or divisions in his lands or principalities,” in order the better “to prevent harmful revolt and other unrighteousness.” But at the same time he assured his subjects that it was not his intention to “prescribe to anyone what he should hold or believe.”[2231]The Prince as Absolute PatriarchThings drifted, thanks to Luther’s own action, slowly but surely towards an entire control of the Church by the State. Luther knew of no better means of stimulating the Evangelical rulers to take action in ecclesiastical things than by setting up before them the example of King David.He describes in 1534, in his exposition of Psalm ci. (c.),[2232]how, in order to exterminate false doctrine, David “made a visitation of the whole of his kingdom.” “He always checked any public inroads of heresy. For the devil never idles or sleeps, hence neither must the spiritual authorities be idle or slumber.” “Oh what a great number of false teachers, idolaters and heretics was he not obliged to expel, or in other ways stop their mouths.... The true teachers on the other hand he had everywhere sought out, promoted, called, appointed and commanded to preach the Word of God purely and simply.... He himself diligently instituted, ordered and appointed true teachers everywhere, himself writing Psalms in which he points out how they are to teach and praise God.” “David in this was a pattern and masterpiece to all pious kings and lords ... showing them how they must not allow wicked men to lead souls astray.”[2233]“I say again, let whoever can, be another David and follow his example, more particularly the princes and lords.”[2234]David, so he continues later, led“pious kings and princes rightly and in a Christian manner to the churches,” but he was also a “model in secular government,” which “can have its own rule apart from the kingdom of God”; to this all Popish princes should restrict themselves and not try to instruct Christ how to rule His Church and spiritual realm.[2235]Hence all that he had once written quite generally of the separation of the kingdom of God with “its own rule” from the “worldly government” was in fact, as he now says more outspokenly, only to apply to the “false priestlings,” and their princes.But when according to David’s example a Lutheran preacher “by virtue of his office,” or a Lutheran prince, demanded the suppression of the false teaching, this “spiritual rule is nothing more than a service offered to God’s own supremacy”; the Lutheran prince is not thereby intruding on the “spiritual or divine authority but remains humbly submissive to it and its servant.”“For, when directed towards God and the service of His Sovereignty, everything must be equal and made to intermingle, whether it be termed spiritual or secular.” “Thus they must be united in the same obedience and kneaded together as it were in one cake.”[2236]—It is hardly possible to believe our eyes when we meet with such phrases coming from the same pen that had formerly so strongly championed the complete sundering of the spiritual from the temporal. Yet Luther even seeks to justify the contradiction on more serious grounds. When it was a case of the true Word of God and of the Evangel, then matters stood quite otherwise.“The secular and spiritual government” are most improperly confused, so he declares, when “spiritual or secular princes and lords seek to change and control the Word of God and to lay down what is to be taught or preached”; here he is referring to the non-Lutheran authorities. Quite a different thing is it “when David concerns himself with the divine or spiritual government,” and really restores God’s glory. Had David said: “My good people, act differently from what God has taught you,” then this would indeed have spelt a “confusion of the spiritual and temporal, of the divine and human government”—such as Luther’s opponents are now guilty of. But David, the servant of God and pattern of all pious princes and kings, because he acted otherwise, was adorned with such high and kingly virtues even in his temporal government that it must have been the work of God, i.e. His peculiar grace; but this same grace is with all pious princes in order that, under their sway and in spite of the hatred of the devil, the temporal rule and “God’s own Rule” may prosper. Supported by such grace David could say of the two authorities he combined: “I suffer neither ungodly men in the spiritual domain nor yet evildoers in the temporal.”[2237]Thus, in the hands of a pious Evangelical prince, the co-existence of these two rules involves no disturbance of order. And they may all the more readily be put into the hand of one who serves God according to His “Word” seeing that there is in reality but a single power; according to Luther, the hierarchy having been destroyed, there was no one holding spiritual authority; as for the semblance of spiritual authority which the congregation had once possessed it had willingly resigned it into the hands of the Christian David on the princely throne. There is but one authority that embraces everything temporal and spiritual and that works in the two “governments” (read: spheres of life), i.e. in the temporal life of the subjects, which is founded on reason and earthly laws, and in the spiritual domain to which the Gospel lifts them up. In both orders man is admonished to obedience towards God by the pious ruler who regulates everything either himself or by means of the preachers.Thus Luther’s conception of the State finally grows into a kind of theocracy.The theocracy of the Israelites is therefore held up to the rulers in the example not only of David but also of the other pious Jewish kings. In the political sphere Old Testament imagery exercised far too great an influence on Luther and his arbitrary new creations. How widely different from the Jewish theocracy was it to see the Father of the country made the highest authority not merely on practical questions of Church government but even on differences concerning faith? The “absolute patriarch”[2238]at Luther’s express demand drives his negligent or reluctant subjects to hear the preachers; on him depends the introduction and use of the greater excommunication, should this weapon ever become necessary; he removes from their posts those professors of the theological or other faculties who oppose the ruling faith, just as he makes his authority felt on the preacher who forsakes the right path. He is, according to Luther, the chief guardian of the young and of all who need his protection, in order, that, where his subjects do not take thought for their salvation and act accordingly, he may “force them to do so, in the same way as he obligesthem to give their services for the repair of bridges, roads and ways, or to render such other services as their country may require.”[2239]On one occasion Luther points out, that in the past, the Pope of Rome had been all in all. Now it is the sovereign of the land, who, as God’s own Vicar, is all in all.Thus we have here, writes Frank Ward in his “Darstellung der Ansichten Luthers vom Staat,” “almost the counterpart of the old ecclesiastical absolutism, seeing that all ecclesiastical functions and conditions so far as they belong to the outward domain are put under the State.”[2240]Instead of its being “almost the counterpart,” it would be better to say that it was an absolute caricature of the supposed ecclesiastical absolutism of the past. Ward, however, goes on to say that in the chapter in question he had only shown how, “Luther gave the State an independent dignity and position, and how he had enlarged and strengthened its claims.”In direct contrast to those writers who see in Luther’s political theory the foundation of the modern State, is a recent statement of Heinrich Boehmer’s.“Luther’s political and social views,” says this author,[2241]“are in every essential point quite mediæval, antiquated and unmodern. People speak of ‘Luther’s views’ or even of ‘Luther’s teaching on the State and society.’ But it would be better to refrain from using such terms which can only serve to arouse false expectations. As little as the reformer was familiar with the words state and society, so little did he know their meaning. For no State or society in the modern sense of the word existed at the time in central or northern Germany, but merely a large number of bodies somewhat resembling States, all of which, however, fell far short of the ideal of a State.” He goes on to explain, that, for this reason, Luther always speaks to the “authorities,” they being in his eyes the most potent factor in the political organisations he knew; yet, in determining their duties, “his mind moves on quite mediæval lines”; “in the matter of political theory he is far behind even Thomas of Aquin, for Thomas had, in the Italian cities, an example of a far more highly developed State, whilst in the school of Aristotle he had made acquaintance with a number of political ideas and views which had led him to a very thorough study of politics.” Boehmer points out that, according to Luther, the Natural Law upbears the outward order with which alone he was conversant—viz. thelanded-aristocratic society which predominated at the time of the reformation—until it came to appear as almost a divine institution, any attempt to overthrow which amounted to a crime, “a view which indeed explains much of the success of Lutheranism, but which is anything but modern.”[2242]Luther’s “Patriarchal theory,” according to H. Boehmer, had an even greater influence on the political conditions of Lutheran countries than his other theory of the rights of the nobility. The princes within the domain of the new church system entered eagerly into the theory of their supposed paternal rights and finally built it out into a quite insufferable absolutism. Such an undue growth of the secular power was the more to be feared seeing that any independent spiritual power, which might, as in the Middle Ages, have served as a counterweight, no longer existed, having been swallowed up in the authority of the prince. Everything had indeed been secularised, and, to the Lutheran ruler, as God’s own representative, it now was left to direct the religious and temporal concerns of the population on the lines laid down in the Bible.“The Lutheran prince,” says Boehmer, “as father of the country, undertook to provide for his subjects in every department of life; his rule was absolute, though indeed patriarchal, an ideal of the State quite in accordance with Luther’s views.”[2243]“Any separation or division of Church and State Luther neither recognised nor desired,” now that he had invested the Evangelical princes with the supreme episcopate.[2244]The term “Zwangskultur,” often used of the absolutism obtaining in the Lutheran order of society, is not altogether incorrect, in spite of the protests of Protestant theologians. Other Protestant authors find a parallel between Luther’s view of the State and certain late mediæval ones; both, according to them, have been influenced by humanism, with its Cæsarean conception of unfreedom, and by theocratic absolutism.Carl Sell notes how the Reformation, “in its own way, put new life into the mediæval idea of a new theocracy.” “How deeply the theocratical idea was rooted in the Protestant State-system may be seen from the time it took before the States would consent to surrender their religious character.”[2245]After the Reformation, says G. Steinhausen, “the theological spirit more than ever laid hold of the world and mankind and fettered the ardent longing for freedom. Herein lies the chief harm wrought by the Reformation.”[2246]“It was the Reformation,” so O. Gierke says, “that broughtabout the energetic revival of the theocratic ideal. In spite of all their differences Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli and Calvin agree in emphasising the Christian call, and, consequently, the divine right of the secular authority. Indeed, on the one hand by subordinating the Church more or less to the State, and on the other by making the State’s authority dependent on its fulfilling its religious duties, they give to the Pauline dictum ‘All authority comes from God’ a far wider scope than it had ever had before.”[2247]Luther’s Real Merit and his ClaimsIf anyone ever really believed that the modern State was in any way embodied in Luther’s ideal or that he paved the way for it, the easiest way to disprove such an assumption would be to show that the most essential feature of the modern State is entirely wanting in the Lutheran, patriarchal one, viz. freedom and the political co-operation of the people, and, above all, the vital atmosphere of personal and corporate independence in religious matters.In point of fact the most that can be argued is that Luther to some extent, though in an entirely negative way, paved the road for the modern conception of the State.This he did by his relentless opposition to the Church, which had so long held sway. As early as the days of Boniface VIII attempts had been made to curtail her action in politics. The efforts of some of the Catholic sovereigns, who, without denying the inherent rights of the spiritual authority, laboured to establish State-Churches also tended in the same direction. Luther was, however, the first who sought to destroy all ecclesiastical authority, as a mere symbol of Antichrist. Hence, for those rulers who took his part, one of the chief obstacles that had withstood the growth of modern conditions was swept away. Nevertheless, wellnigh three hundred years, full of gloomy experiences, had to elapse before a way could be found out of the new labyrinth of despotism, indolence and disorder; and, all this while, the theocratic patriarch of Lutheranism almost invariably stood as an obstacle in the way of development.Frank Ward may indeed assert, that it is possible “to appeal at least to the spirit of his theory of the State, if not to its every detail.”[2248]This, however, is only possible if by“its spirit” we understand not what was new but the old, wholesome, traditional elements which Luther retained, i.e. the political ideas handed down by antiquity and the Christian philosophy of the past, on which he so skilfully impressed his own drastic touch. To these olden elements Luther was, however, scarcely fair.According to what he says and reiterates there had devolved on him alone the incredibly onerous task of finding a way out of the gruesome darkness into which the relations between prince and hierarchy, State and Church, spiritual and temporal order had been plunged in the past: “This is how things stood then. No one had heard or taught, nor did anyone know anything concerning the secular authority, whence it came, what its office or work was, or how it should serve God. The most learned men—I will not name them—looked upon the secular power as a heathen, human and ungodly thing, as a state dangerous to salvation.... In short princes and lords, even such as wished to be pious, regarded their station and office as of no account.... Thus the Pope and the clergy were at that time all in all, over all and in all, like a very god in the world, and the secular power lay unknown and uncared for in the darkness.”[2249]Yet he himself had abased the authorities by reducing them in his writing of 1523 to the position of “jailers and hangmen,” working in a domain foreign to all that was spiritual.[2250]This, of course, was at a time when he had not as yet found patrons amongst the rulers as he was to do later. According to him, those who wielded the secular power, i.e. the princes, were no Christians. In 1522 he complains of the princes to whom he had appealed in vain: “Now they let everything go and one stands in the way of the other. Some even help and further the cause of Antichrist. They are at loggerheads and do not show themselves at all willing to help matters on.”[2251]Thus, according to him, Christ is left to Himself; but “He is the Lord of life and death.... Together with Him we too shall conquer and despise even the princes.”[2252]“God Himself will shortly make an end of Popery by His Word.... A new Church will arise but not by the doing of the princes but of those in whom the Word of God has really taken root.”[2253]Luther then wished, as we have already shown, to bring about the establishment of a Congregational Church; later on he evendreamed of assembling together only the true believers. As, however, the Congregational Churches did not thrive and as it proved impossible to carry out the scheme of a Church apart, he allowed the State to intervene, and, with its help, there came the National Church; this soon grew into a State-Church with the sovereign at its head.Luther still remained, however, the great teacher. He continued to vaunt his ambiguous “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt.” In 1529 he even related how Duke Frederick had caused this writing to be copied and “specially bound; he was very fond of it because it showed him what his position was.”[2254]In 1533, looking back on the whole of his writings concerning the authorities he says: “In Popery such views of the secular power lay under the bench”; “since the time of the Apostles no doctor or scribe” has instructed the worldly estates so “well and outspokenly” as he, not even “Ambrose and Augustine.”[2255]We may here recall the sober and perfectly true remark of Fr. v. Bezold. Luther may have plumed himself on having been the first to revive a right understanding of and respect for the secular authority, but that “the indefensibility of this and similar claims has long since been demonstrated.”[2256]Luther’s error is evident, though unfortunately not to all, as we can convince ourselves by reading the eulogies of Luther which are still so common under the pen of Protestant writers; for instance, that Luther had “deepened Augustine’s view of the State”; that he was ever moving forward “in a straight line,” expanding and perfecting the knowledge already acquired; and that even in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt” “he was already at his best,” etc.It may, therefore, be all the more useful to look a little more closely into one side of the present subject which has not yet been dealt with but which leads to interesting disclosures, viz. into the question of the various circumstances, some outward, some inward and personal, which led Luther to evolve his theory of the patriarchal, absolutist State. Here the Visitation of 1527-28 stands out as a milestone on the road of his development.Other Factors which assisted in the Establishment of the State-ChurchIt was a common phenomenon in all the earlier struggles against the ecclesiastical hierarchy for the separatists to seek for support and assistance from the secular power and the State. From the time of the earliest controversies in the Church this tendency had been noticed among those who broke away. Luther too, from the time of his first public rupture, had cast his eyes on the secular power; nay, even earlier, in his Commentary on Romans, he betrays a tendency to put the secular before the spiritual.[2257]To these ideas he gave full play in the call to reform the Church which he addressed “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation.”For the next few years, however, the ideas are less to the fore. Luther was very well aware that a quiet and gradual procedure would appeal far more to the then Elector, Frederick the Wise, than any urging on of the innovations at high pressure and with State interference. The Elector was in fact so averse to taking any strong measures, that on the contrary he frequently impressed on the Wittenberg leaders the need there was for caution.Matters assumed another aspect, when, in 1525, there came a change of ruler. The Elector Johann of Saxony was a zealous friend of Luther’s and soon became the real patron of Lutheranism. His attitude towards the innovations, taken with Luther’s new tendencies, constituted a prime factor in the rise of a State-governed Church.Another factor was the condition of the Lutheran congregations which had so far sprung up. They were scattered and devoid of organisation. Not seldom they bore within them seeds of dissension born as they had been out of quarrels within the parishes, and maintained for the most part only by the violent action of a majority of the council. The petty rulers naturally sought to link themselves up with the greater powers so as to maintain both the ecclesiastical innovations and their newly acquired rights. The sovereign was a pillar of strength on whom they leaned, when in doubt, when it was a question of defending the preachers they hadappointed, of removing persons they regarded with disfavour, or of allaying disputes amongst the burghers.To all this, however, must be added a further circumstance which contributed to bring about the State supremacy of a later date, viz., the corruption of many of the newly formed congregations, a corruption which urgently called for a strong hand and adequate means of coercion. “When, after the Peasant War,” writes Carl Müller, “the dreadful decline in things ecclesiastical made itself felt, the parsonages and schools threatening to fall into ruins and the agricultural population to relapse into savagery, the time arrived for the rulers of the land to come into greater prominence. It was now no longer a question of individual congregations but rather of the whole country, and above all of the rising generation.”[2258]The intervention of the prince subsequent to the victory over the peasants in 1525 also greatly promoted the increased devotion with which men of influence, Luther included, attached themselves to the authority of the ruler as a bulwark against revolution. The arrogance of the country folk had to be broken by strengthening the power of the sovereign; this Luther repeated so often and so loudly that his foes began to call him a footlicker of the princes.Significance of the Visitation and Inquisition held in the Saxon ElectorateThe decisive importance, for the inward development of the new Church system and for Luther’s position, of the Visitation of the churches of the Saxon Electorate held in 1528 has already been pointed out cursorily.[2259]The Visitation brought to a head a growth which had long been in process. The princely supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs which then came about and was formally sanctioned in Saxony became, with Luther’s consent, which was partly given freely, partly wrung from him, something permanent in the birthplace of the new Church, the Visitations continuing to be carried out in the same way by the prince of the land. Saxony provided a model which was gradually followed in other districtswhere Lutheranism prevailed, while the then tendency to strengthen the reigning houses so as to enable them to hold their own against Emperor and Empire also exercised a powerful influence.The Electoral Visitation which Luther had counselled and to which he most zealously lent his help, had for its aim, according to his own words, which we must take in their most literal sense, “the constituting of the churches” because “everything is now so mangled.”[2260]So much did he expect from it that he even expressed the hope that it would clear up for the future the whole problem of the new “Church” and its organisation, which, strange to say, he had never seen fit to think out theoretically. As a matter of fact it was “cleared up,” and that by the very programme for the Visitation issued by the Court. What was to be instituted was to be neither a Church apart, nor a number of free Congregational Churches, nor a great independent National Church, but a State Establishment, a compulsory Church in fact, though calling itself a National Church upheld by the charity of the State.[2261]We have the programme of the Visitation in the three documents which follow in chronological order, the “Instructions” for the Visitors themselves issued by the Elector on June 16, 1527,[2262]the “Instructions of the Visitors addressed to the ministers of the Saxon Electorate” and the Preface to the same which Luther composed, both of which appeared in print together in March, 1528.[2263]It can scarcely be doubted that Luther had a hand in the drafting of the Electoral Instructions, which form a sort of Magna Charta of princely supremacy in Church matters. All his previous written communications with the Court had been tending towards this end. In his earliest efforts to bring about the Visitation he had told the ruler that it pertained to his “office” to see that the Evangelical workerswere remunerated, that, into his hands “as the supreme head” had fallen “all the monasteries and foundations” and, with them, the “duty and obligation of seeing into a matter in which no one else could or had a right to interfere.” “Not God’s command alone but our own needs require that some step should here be taken.” Thus he demands that the prince, by virtue of his own authority as “one appointed by God for the matter and empowered to act,” should nominate four persons as Visitors, who by his “orders should arrange for the erection and support of schools and parsonages where this was wanted”; of these persons, two were to attend to the material needs, and two who had had a theological training were to examine into the doctrine, preaching and performance of spiritual duties.[2264]Such were the “principles which were eventually carried into practice. For ages after, the Lutheran sovereigns asserted their right to draw up rules concerning the doctrine and constitution of their National Churches, and, to this end, not only laid claim to the old ecclesiastical revenues but also to the right to levy special taxes on their subjects.”[2265]Luther was moved to take up his new standpoint not merely by the needs of the day but also by pious Lutherans, such as Nicholas Hausmann, the pastor of Zwickau, who by examples taken from the Bible had pointed out to the Elector himself what his rights and duties were in this field;[2266]an even stronger influence was, maybe, exerted on him by the lawyers of the Court, who were intent on making the most of the rights of the sovereign, especially by Chancellor Brück, their spokesman, with whom Luther was brought into closer contact when seeking to remedy the existing distress. He himself, as we shall see, hesitated a little about entering upon this new course. The supremacy of the prince nevertheless seemed inevitably called for by the secularisation of Church property, also for the appointment and payment of the pastors, for the removal of incapablepreachers and those who excited the mob,—especially those of “fanatic” inclinations—and, lastly, for the final and violent uprooting of Catholic worship where it still lingered.A Visitation was begun in the Electorate in Feb., 1527, by a very characteristic commission appointed by the sovereign assisted by the University of Wittenberg; it was composed of the following members: the lawyer, Hieronymus Schurff, the two noblemen Hans von der Planitz and Asmus von Haubitz, and Melanchthon. The Electoral Instructions of June, 1527, referred to above were the result of previous experience, and had the approval of both Luther and Melanchthon. The practical experience already gained also proved useful in the drawing up of the “Unterricht der Visitatorn an die Pharhern” which was of a more theological and practical character. It is almost entirely the work of Melanchthon, though it was formally approved and accepted by Luther after some slight alterations. It was sent to Luther by the Elector, who had carefully gone into its details, and who directed him to look through it and also write an historical preface (“narration”) to it, though the work as a whole was to appear to come from the Court. In due time both the “Instructions” and the Preface were sent to the press by the Elector.What had transpired of the contents of the “Unterricht” had already aroused considerable opposition within the Lutheran camp; it was displeasing to the zealots to find Melanchthon again returning half-way to the Catholic doctrine in the matter of penance, free-will and good works. They openly declared that official Lutheranism was “slinking back.” After its appearance further criticism was aroused among both Protestants and Catholics. Of the Catholic writers, Cochlæus ironically drew attention in his “Lutherus septiceps” to the withdrawal that had taken place from Luther’s former crass assertions. He also incidentally describes the strange appearance of the State Visitors: “Here comes the Visitor wearing a new kind of mitre, setting up a new form of Papacy, prescribing new laws for divine worship, and reviving what had long since fallen into disuse and dragging it forth into the light once more.”[2267]Joachim von der Heyden in his printed letter toCatherine Bora even declared, that, in the rules for the Visitation, Luther “had resumed the Imperial rights,” which he had “for a while discarded.” He is referring to certain of the rules dealing with Church property, which were to Luther’s personal interest.[2268]The Elector’s Instruction to the Visitors themselves is, however, of even greater importance in the history of the rise of the Lutheran State Church.“In this Instruction, not only do we meet everywhere with traces of Luther’s wishes,” but it also follows him “in applying the property of monasteries and pious foundations to the support of the churches and schools. In all this, true to Luther’s ideas, it sees the duty of the sovereign who constitutes the Christian authority.”[2269]In this Instruction the attitude adopted by the Elector with regard to doctrine is, that, in view of the Word of God,[2270]he, the supreme lord, is not free to brook the practice of false worship and the teaching of false dogma in his lands. What the true doctrine really is, is taken for granted as known, though it is never expressly stated. On the other hand, in the Preface to the “Unterricht,” Luther tells, how, “now, by the unspeakable grace of God the Gospel has mercifully been brought back to us once more, or, rather, has dawned on us for the first time.”[2271]It was the duty of the sovereign, so the Instruction says, to abolish public scandals and hence to remove unworthy clerics. He must proclaim the Gospel to his subjects by means of those called to do so, and admonish them through the Visitors to take the same to heart. The congregations must, when necessary, assist in supporting the preachers. The Visitors had the right to insist in the sovereign’s name on the contributions called for by the law, and into their hands the Elector committed the management of the Church property.The ruler must take steps, as the divinely appointed authority, in obedience to the Word of God, and in the interests of his country to abolish the remnants of Popish error by means of a Visitation. Those ministers who were papistically inclined were simply to be removed and all the preachers “who advocate, preach or hold any erroneous doctrine are to be told to quit our lands in all haste and also, that, should they return, they will be severely dealt with.” Whoever refuses to abide by the regulations of the sovereign in the dispensing of the sacraments, is to leave the Electorate. For, “though it is not our intention toprescribe to anyone what he is to hold or believe, yet we will not tolerate any sect or division in our principality in order to prevent harmful revolt and other mischief.”[2272]Thus a formal “Inquisition” was introduced, even to the very name, which was to be undertaken by the Visitors in respect not merely of the clergy but even of the laity, attention being paid to the information laid before the Visitors by the officials and members of the nobility. Any layman who refused to desist from his “error” when summoned to do so was obliged within a certain term to sell out and leave the country “with a warning of being severely dealt with” similar to that addressed to clergymen.Hence by means of this “Instruction” the foundation was laid for the State supremacy in religious matters. “Spalatin’s wish was now fulfilled,” says N. Paulus; “the sovereign had now put the ‘Christian bit’ in the mouth of all the clergy, and they could now preach nothing else than the Lutheran doctrine.”[2273]“Oh, what a noble work it would be,” Spalatin had written in 1525, when first proposing such a use of the ‘bit,’ “and what great good would result for the whole of Christendom.”[2274]“Spalatin’s pious wish,” drily remarks Th. Kolde, “was to be more thoroughly realised than probably he bargained for.”[2275]Luther himself was pleased with the Instructions. He never ventured to bring forward any real objection against it, greatly as the document ran counter to his earlier principles; after the appearance of the “Unterricht” addressed to the pastors, headed by Luther’s remarkable preface, it was once more printed without any protest. Yet the Preface bears witness to his misgivings.Luther’s Misgivings in the Preface to the Visitors’ DirectionsThe standpoint taken up by the Wittenberg Professor in his Preface to the “Unterricht” is so curious that it has even been said that a “manifest contradiction” exists between it and the Instructions which follow.[2276]In it, albeit cautiously, he made certain reservations, which show that the absolutist system of Church government proposed by the Prince did not really appeal to him. It is clear he did not feel quite at ease about the Instructions, because of his former advocacy of the independence of the congregations in ecclesiastical matters, because of the future subserviency of Church to State and because the directions were at variance with honest convictions deeply rooted in his mind from the days of his youth. At the same time his misgivings are expressed only with the greatest restraint.
According to Luther’s new modification of his views each locality was to have but one form of worship. Any divergency in preaching or worship must always sow the seeds of dissension, revolt and mob-law; the authorities ought not to permit such a state of things if they valued the preservation of order; so as to insure uniformity of preaching and worship dissenting preachers must be removed. It was for this reason that the inhabitants of Nuremberg had “silenced their monks and shut up their monasteries.”[2223]In this way, encouraged by the wisdom of a “prudent” town-council, which did not look beyond the city walls, Luther came to make his notorious request to his sovereign, viz. that Catholics who remained true to their faith should be banished from the country; for “madcaps,” who refuse to take the proposed arrangement in good part and in the spirit of Christian charity, are not to be suffered among Christians but must be swept away like “chaff from the threshing floor.”[2224]As though the secular power had not even then ample means at its disposal for checking or punishing any real disturbance of the peace on the part of a congregation. At the present day we can afford to smile at the strange reason assigned for measures so far-reaching against innocent citizens of the State; the assertionthat difference of worship gives rise to unendurable discord sounds ridiculous to one used to the principles of liberty paramount in the civilised States of to-day. At any rate, this dictum did not make of Luther the founder of the modern State.In strange contrast with the modern ideas of justice is the excuse he brings forward to vindicate the violent conversion to Protestantism so often practised by the magistrates or petty rulers in their own territories. “What is done by the regular authorities is not to be regarded as revolt.”[2225]Is it really a fact that subversion and violence cease to be wrong when practised by the regular authorities? The modern State—in theory at any rate—recognises no such principle.It must be added, that both Luther and the princes devoted to him were fond of declaring that the really Christian rulers were bound to put an end to insults and blasphemies against God, regardless of any disturbance of civil life which might ensue. Luther made a beginning by exhorting the sovereign and the congregation to abolish the Mass at Wittenberg which, like Catholic worship in general, was a perpetual blasphemy of God. “The regular authorities” must rise up against “such blasphemy.” The scandal given being public, no indulgence was to be shown by Christians.[2226]Eventually every false doctrine was accounted a public scandal, i.e. every opinion expressed in writings or sermons which deviated from the true Evangel. “It is the duty” of the authorities, he says, “to punish public blasphemers ... and in the same way they should punish, or at least not brook, those who teach that Christ did not die for our sins, but that each one must make satisfaction for himself.”[2227]This, according to him, was notoriously the teaching of the Catholics.But if the Papists and the Lutherans as they are called, “preach against each other in a parish, town or district” and neither party will yield, “then let the authorities step in and try the case, and whichever party does not agree with Scripture, let him be ordered to hold his tongue.”[2228]Thus the official delegated by the prince—where the prince himself was loath to take the chair—is to decide which is the true meaning of the Bible, and which party really conforms to it.How opposed this was to the ground principles of the modern State it is scarcely necessary to point out here. The freedompostulated by the latter was absolutely unknown to Luther; had his mind ever risen to such heights he would never have proposed the farcical Bible examination to be held by the authorities.The relation between such demands as these and Luther’s own former attitude has not escaped the censure of Protestant writers.“Luther here contradicts himself,” remarks Drews;[2229]“as late as 1524 he had said that men must be allowed to disagree, and a year later that the authorities have no right to prevent every man from ‘teaching and believing whatever he wished, whether it be Gospel or lie’; it was sufficient if they checked the preaching of rebellion and any disturbance of the peace.”[2230]The Elector Johann Frederick of Saxony adopted the view that uniformity of doctrine was called for. He would, so he declared, “recognise or tolerate no sects or divisions in his lands or principalities,” in order the better “to prevent harmful revolt and other unrighteousness.” But at the same time he assured his subjects that it was not his intention to “prescribe to anyone what he should hold or believe.”[2231]The Prince as Absolute PatriarchThings drifted, thanks to Luther’s own action, slowly but surely towards an entire control of the Church by the State. Luther knew of no better means of stimulating the Evangelical rulers to take action in ecclesiastical things than by setting up before them the example of King David.He describes in 1534, in his exposition of Psalm ci. (c.),[2232]how, in order to exterminate false doctrine, David “made a visitation of the whole of his kingdom.” “He always checked any public inroads of heresy. For the devil never idles or sleeps, hence neither must the spiritual authorities be idle or slumber.” “Oh what a great number of false teachers, idolaters and heretics was he not obliged to expel, or in other ways stop their mouths.... The true teachers on the other hand he had everywhere sought out, promoted, called, appointed and commanded to preach the Word of God purely and simply.... He himself diligently instituted, ordered and appointed true teachers everywhere, himself writing Psalms in which he points out how they are to teach and praise God.” “David in this was a pattern and masterpiece to all pious kings and lords ... showing them how they must not allow wicked men to lead souls astray.”[2233]“I say again, let whoever can, be another David and follow his example, more particularly the princes and lords.”[2234]David, so he continues later, led“pious kings and princes rightly and in a Christian manner to the churches,” but he was also a “model in secular government,” which “can have its own rule apart from the kingdom of God”; to this all Popish princes should restrict themselves and not try to instruct Christ how to rule His Church and spiritual realm.[2235]Hence all that he had once written quite generally of the separation of the kingdom of God with “its own rule” from the “worldly government” was in fact, as he now says more outspokenly, only to apply to the “false priestlings,” and their princes.But when according to David’s example a Lutheran preacher “by virtue of his office,” or a Lutheran prince, demanded the suppression of the false teaching, this “spiritual rule is nothing more than a service offered to God’s own supremacy”; the Lutheran prince is not thereby intruding on the “spiritual or divine authority but remains humbly submissive to it and its servant.”“For, when directed towards God and the service of His Sovereignty, everything must be equal and made to intermingle, whether it be termed spiritual or secular.” “Thus they must be united in the same obedience and kneaded together as it were in one cake.”[2236]—It is hardly possible to believe our eyes when we meet with such phrases coming from the same pen that had formerly so strongly championed the complete sundering of the spiritual from the temporal. Yet Luther even seeks to justify the contradiction on more serious grounds. When it was a case of the true Word of God and of the Evangel, then matters stood quite otherwise.“The secular and spiritual government” are most improperly confused, so he declares, when “spiritual or secular princes and lords seek to change and control the Word of God and to lay down what is to be taught or preached”; here he is referring to the non-Lutheran authorities. Quite a different thing is it “when David concerns himself with the divine or spiritual government,” and really restores God’s glory. Had David said: “My good people, act differently from what God has taught you,” then this would indeed have spelt a “confusion of the spiritual and temporal, of the divine and human government”—such as Luther’s opponents are now guilty of. But David, the servant of God and pattern of all pious princes and kings, because he acted otherwise, was adorned with such high and kingly virtues even in his temporal government that it must have been the work of God, i.e. His peculiar grace; but this same grace is with all pious princes in order that, under their sway and in spite of the hatred of the devil, the temporal rule and “God’s own Rule” may prosper. Supported by such grace David could say of the two authorities he combined: “I suffer neither ungodly men in the spiritual domain nor yet evildoers in the temporal.”[2237]Thus, in the hands of a pious Evangelical prince, the co-existence of these two rules involves no disturbance of order. And they may all the more readily be put into the hand of one who serves God according to His “Word” seeing that there is in reality but a single power; according to Luther, the hierarchy having been destroyed, there was no one holding spiritual authority; as for the semblance of spiritual authority which the congregation had once possessed it had willingly resigned it into the hands of the Christian David on the princely throne. There is but one authority that embraces everything temporal and spiritual and that works in the two “governments” (read: spheres of life), i.e. in the temporal life of the subjects, which is founded on reason and earthly laws, and in the spiritual domain to which the Gospel lifts them up. In both orders man is admonished to obedience towards God by the pious ruler who regulates everything either himself or by means of the preachers.Thus Luther’s conception of the State finally grows into a kind of theocracy.The theocracy of the Israelites is therefore held up to the rulers in the example not only of David but also of the other pious Jewish kings. In the political sphere Old Testament imagery exercised far too great an influence on Luther and his arbitrary new creations. How widely different from the Jewish theocracy was it to see the Father of the country made the highest authority not merely on practical questions of Church government but even on differences concerning faith? The “absolute patriarch”[2238]at Luther’s express demand drives his negligent or reluctant subjects to hear the preachers; on him depends the introduction and use of the greater excommunication, should this weapon ever become necessary; he removes from their posts those professors of the theological or other faculties who oppose the ruling faith, just as he makes his authority felt on the preacher who forsakes the right path. He is, according to Luther, the chief guardian of the young and of all who need his protection, in order, that, where his subjects do not take thought for their salvation and act accordingly, he may “force them to do so, in the same way as he obligesthem to give their services for the repair of bridges, roads and ways, or to render such other services as their country may require.”[2239]On one occasion Luther points out, that in the past, the Pope of Rome had been all in all. Now it is the sovereign of the land, who, as God’s own Vicar, is all in all.Thus we have here, writes Frank Ward in his “Darstellung der Ansichten Luthers vom Staat,” “almost the counterpart of the old ecclesiastical absolutism, seeing that all ecclesiastical functions and conditions so far as they belong to the outward domain are put under the State.”[2240]Instead of its being “almost the counterpart,” it would be better to say that it was an absolute caricature of the supposed ecclesiastical absolutism of the past. Ward, however, goes on to say that in the chapter in question he had only shown how, “Luther gave the State an independent dignity and position, and how he had enlarged and strengthened its claims.”In direct contrast to those writers who see in Luther’s political theory the foundation of the modern State, is a recent statement of Heinrich Boehmer’s.“Luther’s political and social views,” says this author,[2241]“are in every essential point quite mediæval, antiquated and unmodern. People speak of ‘Luther’s views’ or even of ‘Luther’s teaching on the State and society.’ But it would be better to refrain from using such terms which can only serve to arouse false expectations. As little as the reformer was familiar with the words state and society, so little did he know their meaning. For no State or society in the modern sense of the word existed at the time in central or northern Germany, but merely a large number of bodies somewhat resembling States, all of which, however, fell far short of the ideal of a State.” He goes on to explain, that, for this reason, Luther always speaks to the “authorities,” they being in his eyes the most potent factor in the political organisations he knew; yet, in determining their duties, “his mind moves on quite mediæval lines”; “in the matter of political theory he is far behind even Thomas of Aquin, for Thomas had, in the Italian cities, an example of a far more highly developed State, whilst in the school of Aristotle he had made acquaintance with a number of political ideas and views which had led him to a very thorough study of politics.” Boehmer points out that, according to Luther, the Natural Law upbears the outward order with which alone he was conversant—viz. thelanded-aristocratic society which predominated at the time of the reformation—until it came to appear as almost a divine institution, any attempt to overthrow which amounted to a crime, “a view which indeed explains much of the success of Lutheranism, but which is anything but modern.”[2242]Luther’s “Patriarchal theory,” according to H. Boehmer, had an even greater influence on the political conditions of Lutheran countries than his other theory of the rights of the nobility. The princes within the domain of the new church system entered eagerly into the theory of their supposed paternal rights and finally built it out into a quite insufferable absolutism. Such an undue growth of the secular power was the more to be feared seeing that any independent spiritual power, which might, as in the Middle Ages, have served as a counterweight, no longer existed, having been swallowed up in the authority of the prince. Everything had indeed been secularised, and, to the Lutheran ruler, as God’s own representative, it now was left to direct the religious and temporal concerns of the population on the lines laid down in the Bible.“The Lutheran prince,” says Boehmer, “as father of the country, undertook to provide for his subjects in every department of life; his rule was absolute, though indeed patriarchal, an ideal of the State quite in accordance with Luther’s views.”[2243]“Any separation or division of Church and State Luther neither recognised nor desired,” now that he had invested the Evangelical princes with the supreme episcopate.[2244]The term “Zwangskultur,” often used of the absolutism obtaining in the Lutheran order of society, is not altogether incorrect, in spite of the protests of Protestant theologians. Other Protestant authors find a parallel between Luther’s view of the State and certain late mediæval ones; both, according to them, have been influenced by humanism, with its Cæsarean conception of unfreedom, and by theocratic absolutism.Carl Sell notes how the Reformation, “in its own way, put new life into the mediæval idea of a new theocracy.” “How deeply the theocratical idea was rooted in the Protestant State-system may be seen from the time it took before the States would consent to surrender their religious character.”[2245]After the Reformation, says G. Steinhausen, “the theological spirit more than ever laid hold of the world and mankind and fettered the ardent longing for freedom. Herein lies the chief harm wrought by the Reformation.”[2246]“It was the Reformation,” so O. Gierke says, “that broughtabout the energetic revival of the theocratic ideal. In spite of all their differences Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli and Calvin agree in emphasising the Christian call, and, consequently, the divine right of the secular authority. Indeed, on the one hand by subordinating the Church more or less to the State, and on the other by making the State’s authority dependent on its fulfilling its religious duties, they give to the Pauline dictum ‘All authority comes from God’ a far wider scope than it had ever had before.”[2247]Luther’s Real Merit and his ClaimsIf anyone ever really believed that the modern State was in any way embodied in Luther’s ideal or that he paved the way for it, the easiest way to disprove such an assumption would be to show that the most essential feature of the modern State is entirely wanting in the Lutheran, patriarchal one, viz. freedom and the political co-operation of the people, and, above all, the vital atmosphere of personal and corporate independence in religious matters.In point of fact the most that can be argued is that Luther to some extent, though in an entirely negative way, paved the road for the modern conception of the State.This he did by his relentless opposition to the Church, which had so long held sway. As early as the days of Boniface VIII attempts had been made to curtail her action in politics. The efforts of some of the Catholic sovereigns, who, without denying the inherent rights of the spiritual authority, laboured to establish State-Churches also tended in the same direction. Luther was, however, the first who sought to destroy all ecclesiastical authority, as a mere symbol of Antichrist. Hence, for those rulers who took his part, one of the chief obstacles that had withstood the growth of modern conditions was swept away. Nevertheless, wellnigh three hundred years, full of gloomy experiences, had to elapse before a way could be found out of the new labyrinth of despotism, indolence and disorder; and, all this while, the theocratic patriarch of Lutheranism almost invariably stood as an obstacle in the way of development.Frank Ward may indeed assert, that it is possible “to appeal at least to the spirit of his theory of the State, if not to its every detail.”[2248]This, however, is only possible if by“its spirit” we understand not what was new but the old, wholesome, traditional elements which Luther retained, i.e. the political ideas handed down by antiquity and the Christian philosophy of the past, on which he so skilfully impressed his own drastic touch. To these olden elements Luther was, however, scarcely fair.According to what he says and reiterates there had devolved on him alone the incredibly onerous task of finding a way out of the gruesome darkness into which the relations between prince and hierarchy, State and Church, spiritual and temporal order had been plunged in the past: “This is how things stood then. No one had heard or taught, nor did anyone know anything concerning the secular authority, whence it came, what its office or work was, or how it should serve God. The most learned men—I will not name them—looked upon the secular power as a heathen, human and ungodly thing, as a state dangerous to salvation.... In short princes and lords, even such as wished to be pious, regarded their station and office as of no account.... Thus the Pope and the clergy were at that time all in all, over all and in all, like a very god in the world, and the secular power lay unknown and uncared for in the darkness.”[2249]Yet he himself had abased the authorities by reducing them in his writing of 1523 to the position of “jailers and hangmen,” working in a domain foreign to all that was spiritual.[2250]This, of course, was at a time when he had not as yet found patrons amongst the rulers as he was to do later. According to him, those who wielded the secular power, i.e. the princes, were no Christians. In 1522 he complains of the princes to whom he had appealed in vain: “Now they let everything go and one stands in the way of the other. Some even help and further the cause of Antichrist. They are at loggerheads and do not show themselves at all willing to help matters on.”[2251]Thus, according to him, Christ is left to Himself; but “He is the Lord of life and death.... Together with Him we too shall conquer and despise even the princes.”[2252]“God Himself will shortly make an end of Popery by His Word.... A new Church will arise but not by the doing of the princes but of those in whom the Word of God has really taken root.”[2253]Luther then wished, as we have already shown, to bring about the establishment of a Congregational Church; later on he evendreamed of assembling together only the true believers. As, however, the Congregational Churches did not thrive and as it proved impossible to carry out the scheme of a Church apart, he allowed the State to intervene, and, with its help, there came the National Church; this soon grew into a State-Church with the sovereign at its head.Luther still remained, however, the great teacher. He continued to vaunt his ambiguous “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt.” In 1529 he even related how Duke Frederick had caused this writing to be copied and “specially bound; he was very fond of it because it showed him what his position was.”[2254]In 1533, looking back on the whole of his writings concerning the authorities he says: “In Popery such views of the secular power lay under the bench”; “since the time of the Apostles no doctor or scribe” has instructed the worldly estates so “well and outspokenly” as he, not even “Ambrose and Augustine.”[2255]We may here recall the sober and perfectly true remark of Fr. v. Bezold. Luther may have plumed himself on having been the first to revive a right understanding of and respect for the secular authority, but that “the indefensibility of this and similar claims has long since been demonstrated.”[2256]Luther’s error is evident, though unfortunately not to all, as we can convince ourselves by reading the eulogies of Luther which are still so common under the pen of Protestant writers; for instance, that Luther had “deepened Augustine’s view of the State”; that he was ever moving forward “in a straight line,” expanding and perfecting the knowledge already acquired; and that even in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt” “he was already at his best,” etc.It may, therefore, be all the more useful to look a little more closely into one side of the present subject which has not yet been dealt with but which leads to interesting disclosures, viz. into the question of the various circumstances, some outward, some inward and personal, which led Luther to evolve his theory of the patriarchal, absolutist State. Here the Visitation of 1527-28 stands out as a milestone on the road of his development.Other Factors which assisted in the Establishment of the State-ChurchIt was a common phenomenon in all the earlier struggles against the ecclesiastical hierarchy for the separatists to seek for support and assistance from the secular power and the State. From the time of the earliest controversies in the Church this tendency had been noticed among those who broke away. Luther too, from the time of his first public rupture, had cast his eyes on the secular power; nay, even earlier, in his Commentary on Romans, he betrays a tendency to put the secular before the spiritual.[2257]To these ideas he gave full play in the call to reform the Church which he addressed “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation.”For the next few years, however, the ideas are less to the fore. Luther was very well aware that a quiet and gradual procedure would appeal far more to the then Elector, Frederick the Wise, than any urging on of the innovations at high pressure and with State interference. The Elector was in fact so averse to taking any strong measures, that on the contrary he frequently impressed on the Wittenberg leaders the need there was for caution.Matters assumed another aspect, when, in 1525, there came a change of ruler. The Elector Johann of Saxony was a zealous friend of Luther’s and soon became the real patron of Lutheranism. His attitude towards the innovations, taken with Luther’s new tendencies, constituted a prime factor in the rise of a State-governed Church.Another factor was the condition of the Lutheran congregations which had so far sprung up. They were scattered and devoid of organisation. Not seldom they bore within them seeds of dissension born as they had been out of quarrels within the parishes, and maintained for the most part only by the violent action of a majority of the council. The petty rulers naturally sought to link themselves up with the greater powers so as to maintain both the ecclesiastical innovations and their newly acquired rights. The sovereign was a pillar of strength on whom they leaned, when in doubt, when it was a question of defending the preachers they hadappointed, of removing persons they regarded with disfavour, or of allaying disputes amongst the burghers.To all this, however, must be added a further circumstance which contributed to bring about the State supremacy of a later date, viz., the corruption of many of the newly formed congregations, a corruption which urgently called for a strong hand and adequate means of coercion. “When, after the Peasant War,” writes Carl Müller, “the dreadful decline in things ecclesiastical made itself felt, the parsonages and schools threatening to fall into ruins and the agricultural population to relapse into savagery, the time arrived for the rulers of the land to come into greater prominence. It was now no longer a question of individual congregations but rather of the whole country, and above all of the rising generation.”[2258]The intervention of the prince subsequent to the victory over the peasants in 1525 also greatly promoted the increased devotion with which men of influence, Luther included, attached themselves to the authority of the ruler as a bulwark against revolution. The arrogance of the country folk had to be broken by strengthening the power of the sovereign; this Luther repeated so often and so loudly that his foes began to call him a footlicker of the princes.Significance of the Visitation and Inquisition held in the Saxon ElectorateThe decisive importance, for the inward development of the new Church system and for Luther’s position, of the Visitation of the churches of the Saxon Electorate held in 1528 has already been pointed out cursorily.[2259]The Visitation brought to a head a growth which had long been in process. The princely supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs which then came about and was formally sanctioned in Saxony became, with Luther’s consent, which was partly given freely, partly wrung from him, something permanent in the birthplace of the new Church, the Visitations continuing to be carried out in the same way by the prince of the land. Saxony provided a model which was gradually followed in other districtswhere Lutheranism prevailed, while the then tendency to strengthen the reigning houses so as to enable them to hold their own against Emperor and Empire also exercised a powerful influence.The Electoral Visitation which Luther had counselled and to which he most zealously lent his help, had for its aim, according to his own words, which we must take in their most literal sense, “the constituting of the churches” because “everything is now so mangled.”[2260]So much did he expect from it that he even expressed the hope that it would clear up for the future the whole problem of the new “Church” and its organisation, which, strange to say, he had never seen fit to think out theoretically. As a matter of fact it was “cleared up,” and that by the very programme for the Visitation issued by the Court. What was to be instituted was to be neither a Church apart, nor a number of free Congregational Churches, nor a great independent National Church, but a State Establishment, a compulsory Church in fact, though calling itself a National Church upheld by the charity of the State.[2261]We have the programme of the Visitation in the three documents which follow in chronological order, the “Instructions” for the Visitors themselves issued by the Elector on June 16, 1527,[2262]the “Instructions of the Visitors addressed to the ministers of the Saxon Electorate” and the Preface to the same which Luther composed, both of which appeared in print together in March, 1528.[2263]It can scarcely be doubted that Luther had a hand in the drafting of the Electoral Instructions, which form a sort of Magna Charta of princely supremacy in Church matters. All his previous written communications with the Court had been tending towards this end. In his earliest efforts to bring about the Visitation he had told the ruler that it pertained to his “office” to see that the Evangelical workerswere remunerated, that, into his hands “as the supreme head” had fallen “all the monasteries and foundations” and, with them, the “duty and obligation of seeing into a matter in which no one else could or had a right to interfere.” “Not God’s command alone but our own needs require that some step should here be taken.” Thus he demands that the prince, by virtue of his own authority as “one appointed by God for the matter and empowered to act,” should nominate four persons as Visitors, who by his “orders should arrange for the erection and support of schools and parsonages where this was wanted”; of these persons, two were to attend to the material needs, and two who had had a theological training were to examine into the doctrine, preaching and performance of spiritual duties.[2264]Such were the “principles which were eventually carried into practice. For ages after, the Lutheran sovereigns asserted their right to draw up rules concerning the doctrine and constitution of their National Churches, and, to this end, not only laid claim to the old ecclesiastical revenues but also to the right to levy special taxes on their subjects.”[2265]Luther was moved to take up his new standpoint not merely by the needs of the day but also by pious Lutherans, such as Nicholas Hausmann, the pastor of Zwickau, who by examples taken from the Bible had pointed out to the Elector himself what his rights and duties were in this field;[2266]an even stronger influence was, maybe, exerted on him by the lawyers of the Court, who were intent on making the most of the rights of the sovereign, especially by Chancellor Brück, their spokesman, with whom Luther was brought into closer contact when seeking to remedy the existing distress. He himself, as we shall see, hesitated a little about entering upon this new course. The supremacy of the prince nevertheless seemed inevitably called for by the secularisation of Church property, also for the appointment and payment of the pastors, for the removal of incapablepreachers and those who excited the mob,—especially those of “fanatic” inclinations—and, lastly, for the final and violent uprooting of Catholic worship where it still lingered.A Visitation was begun in the Electorate in Feb., 1527, by a very characteristic commission appointed by the sovereign assisted by the University of Wittenberg; it was composed of the following members: the lawyer, Hieronymus Schurff, the two noblemen Hans von der Planitz and Asmus von Haubitz, and Melanchthon. The Electoral Instructions of June, 1527, referred to above were the result of previous experience, and had the approval of both Luther and Melanchthon. The practical experience already gained also proved useful in the drawing up of the “Unterricht der Visitatorn an die Pharhern” which was of a more theological and practical character. It is almost entirely the work of Melanchthon, though it was formally approved and accepted by Luther after some slight alterations. It was sent to Luther by the Elector, who had carefully gone into its details, and who directed him to look through it and also write an historical preface (“narration”) to it, though the work as a whole was to appear to come from the Court. In due time both the “Instructions” and the Preface were sent to the press by the Elector.What had transpired of the contents of the “Unterricht” had already aroused considerable opposition within the Lutheran camp; it was displeasing to the zealots to find Melanchthon again returning half-way to the Catholic doctrine in the matter of penance, free-will and good works. They openly declared that official Lutheranism was “slinking back.” After its appearance further criticism was aroused among both Protestants and Catholics. Of the Catholic writers, Cochlæus ironically drew attention in his “Lutherus septiceps” to the withdrawal that had taken place from Luther’s former crass assertions. He also incidentally describes the strange appearance of the State Visitors: “Here comes the Visitor wearing a new kind of mitre, setting up a new form of Papacy, prescribing new laws for divine worship, and reviving what had long since fallen into disuse and dragging it forth into the light once more.”[2267]Joachim von der Heyden in his printed letter toCatherine Bora even declared, that, in the rules for the Visitation, Luther “had resumed the Imperial rights,” which he had “for a while discarded.” He is referring to certain of the rules dealing with Church property, which were to Luther’s personal interest.[2268]The Elector’s Instruction to the Visitors themselves is, however, of even greater importance in the history of the rise of the Lutheran State Church.“In this Instruction, not only do we meet everywhere with traces of Luther’s wishes,” but it also follows him “in applying the property of monasteries and pious foundations to the support of the churches and schools. In all this, true to Luther’s ideas, it sees the duty of the sovereign who constitutes the Christian authority.”[2269]In this Instruction the attitude adopted by the Elector with regard to doctrine is, that, in view of the Word of God,[2270]he, the supreme lord, is not free to brook the practice of false worship and the teaching of false dogma in his lands. What the true doctrine really is, is taken for granted as known, though it is never expressly stated. On the other hand, in the Preface to the “Unterricht,” Luther tells, how, “now, by the unspeakable grace of God the Gospel has mercifully been brought back to us once more, or, rather, has dawned on us for the first time.”[2271]It was the duty of the sovereign, so the Instruction says, to abolish public scandals and hence to remove unworthy clerics. He must proclaim the Gospel to his subjects by means of those called to do so, and admonish them through the Visitors to take the same to heart. The congregations must, when necessary, assist in supporting the preachers. The Visitors had the right to insist in the sovereign’s name on the contributions called for by the law, and into their hands the Elector committed the management of the Church property.The ruler must take steps, as the divinely appointed authority, in obedience to the Word of God, and in the interests of his country to abolish the remnants of Popish error by means of a Visitation. Those ministers who were papistically inclined were simply to be removed and all the preachers “who advocate, preach or hold any erroneous doctrine are to be told to quit our lands in all haste and also, that, should they return, they will be severely dealt with.” Whoever refuses to abide by the regulations of the sovereign in the dispensing of the sacraments, is to leave the Electorate. For, “though it is not our intention toprescribe to anyone what he is to hold or believe, yet we will not tolerate any sect or division in our principality in order to prevent harmful revolt and other mischief.”[2272]Thus a formal “Inquisition” was introduced, even to the very name, which was to be undertaken by the Visitors in respect not merely of the clergy but even of the laity, attention being paid to the information laid before the Visitors by the officials and members of the nobility. Any layman who refused to desist from his “error” when summoned to do so was obliged within a certain term to sell out and leave the country “with a warning of being severely dealt with” similar to that addressed to clergymen.Hence by means of this “Instruction” the foundation was laid for the State supremacy in religious matters. “Spalatin’s wish was now fulfilled,” says N. Paulus; “the sovereign had now put the ‘Christian bit’ in the mouth of all the clergy, and they could now preach nothing else than the Lutheran doctrine.”[2273]“Oh, what a noble work it would be,” Spalatin had written in 1525, when first proposing such a use of the ‘bit,’ “and what great good would result for the whole of Christendom.”[2274]“Spalatin’s pious wish,” drily remarks Th. Kolde, “was to be more thoroughly realised than probably he bargained for.”[2275]Luther himself was pleased with the Instructions. He never ventured to bring forward any real objection against it, greatly as the document ran counter to his earlier principles; after the appearance of the “Unterricht” addressed to the pastors, headed by Luther’s remarkable preface, it was once more printed without any protest. Yet the Preface bears witness to his misgivings.Luther’s Misgivings in the Preface to the Visitors’ DirectionsThe standpoint taken up by the Wittenberg Professor in his Preface to the “Unterricht” is so curious that it has even been said that a “manifest contradiction” exists between it and the Instructions which follow.[2276]In it, albeit cautiously, he made certain reservations, which show that the absolutist system of Church government proposed by the Prince did not really appeal to him. It is clear he did not feel quite at ease about the Instructions, because of his former advocacy of the independence of the congregations in ecclesiastical matters, because of the future subserviency of Church to State and because the directions were at variance with honest convictions deeply rooted in his mind from the days of his youth. At the same time his misgivings are expressed only with the greatest restraint.
According to Luther’s new modification of his views each locality was to have but one form of worship. Any divergency in preaching or worship must always sow the seeds of dissension, revolt and mob-law; the authorities ought not to permit such a state of things if they valued the preservation of order; so as to insure uniformity of preaching and worship dissenting preachers must be removed. It was for this reason that the inhabitants of Nuremberg had “silenced their monks and shut up their monasteries.”[2223]In this way, encouraged by the wisdom of a “prudent” town-council, which did not look beyond the city walls, Luther came to make his notorious request to his sovereign, viz. that Catholics who remained true to their faith should be banished from the country; for “madcaps,” who refuse to take the proposed arrangement in good part and in the spirit of Christian charity, are not to be suffered among Christians but must be swept away like “chaff from the threshing floor.”[2224]As though the secular power had not even then ample means at its disposal for checking or punishing any real disturbance of the peace on the part of a congregation. At the present day we can afford to smile at the strange reason assigned for measures so far-reaching against innocent citizens of the State; the assertionthat difference of worship gives rise to unendurable discord sounds ridiculous to one used to the principles of liberty paramount in the civilised States of to-day. At any rate, this dictum did not make of Luther the founder of the modern State.In strange contrast with the modern ideas of justice is the excuse he brings forward to vindicate the violent conversion to Protestantism so often practised by the magistrates or petty rulers in their own territories. “What is done by the regular authorities is not to be regarded as revolt.”[2225]Is it really a fact that subversion and violence cease to be wrong when practised by the regular authorities? The modern State—in theory at any rate—recognises no such principle.It must be added, that both Luther and the princes devoted to him were fond of declaring that the really Christian rulers were bound to put an end to insults and blasphemies against God, regardless of any disturbance of civil life which might ensue. Luther made a beginning by exhorting the sovereign and the congregation to abolish the Mass at Wittenberg which, like Catholic worship in general, was a perpetual blasphemy of God. “The regular authorities” must rise up against “such blasphemy.” The scandal given being public, no indulgence was to be shown by Christians.[2226]Eventually every false doctrine was accounted a public scandal, i.e. every opinion expressed in writings or sermons which deviated from the true Evangel. “It is the duty” of the authorities, he says, “to punish public blasphemers ... and in the same way they should punish, or at least not brook, those who teach that Christ did not die for our sins, but that each one must make satisfaction for himself.”[2227]This, according to him, was notoriously the teaching of the Catholics.But if the Papists and the Lutherans as they are called, “preach against each other in a parish, town or district” and neither party will yield, “then let the authorities step in and try the case, and whichever party does not agree with Scripture, let him be ordered to hold his tongue.”[2228]Thus the official delegated by the prince—where the prince himself was loath to take the chair—is to decide which is the true meaning of the Bible, and which party really conforms to it.How opposed this was to the ground principles of the modern State it is scarcely necessary to point out here. The freedompostulated by the latter was absolutely unknown to Luther; had his mind ever risen to such heights he would never have proposed the farcical Bible examination to be held by the authorities.The relation between such demands as these and Luther’s own former attitude has not escaped the censure of Protestant writers.“Luther here contradicts himself,” remarks Drews;[2229]“as late as 1524 he had said that men must be allowed to disagree, and a year later that the authorities have no right to prevent every man from ‘teaching and believing whatever he wished, whether it be Gospel or lie’; it was sufficient if they checked the preaching of rebellion and any disturbance of the peace.”[2230]The Elector Johann Frederick of Saxony adopted the view that uniformity of doctrine was called for. He would, so he declared, “recognise or tolerate no sects or divisions in his lands or principalities,” in order the better “to prevent harmful revolt and other unrighteousness.” But at the same time he assured his subjects that it was not his intention to “prescribe to anyone what he should hold or believe.”[2231]
According to Luther’s new modification of his views each locality was to have but one form of worship. Any divergency in preaching or worship must always sow the seeds of dissension, revolt and mob-law; the authorities ought not to permit such a state of things if they valued the preservation of order; so as to insure uniformity of preaching and worship dissenting preachers must be removed. It was for this reason that the inhabitants of Nuremberg had “silenced their monks and shut up their monasteries.”[2223]In this way, encouraged by the wisdom of a “prudent” town-council, which did not look beyond the city walls, Luther came to make his notorious request to his sovereign, viz. that Catholics who remained true to their faith should be banished from the country; for “madcaps,” who refuse to take the proposed arrangement in good part and in the spirit of Christian charity, are not to be suffered among Christians but must be swept away like “chaff from the threshing floor.”[2224]As though the secular power had not even then ample means at its disposal for checking or punishing any real disturbance of the peace on the part of a congregation. At the present day we can afford to smile at the strange reason assigned for measures so far-reaching against innocent citizens of the State; the assertionthat difference of worship gives rise to unendurable discord sounds ridiculous to one used to the principles of liberty paramount in the civilised States of to-day. At any rate, this dictum did not make of Luther the founder of the modern State.
In strange contrast with the modern ideas of justice is the excuse he brings forward to vindicate the violent conversion to Protestantism so often practised by the magistrates or petty rulers in their own territories. “What is done by the regular authorities is not to be regarded as revolt.”[2225]Is it really a fact that subversion and violence cease to be wrong when practised by the regular authorities? The modern State—in theory at any rate—recognises no such principle.
It must be added, that both Luther and the princes devoted to him were fond of declaring that the really Christian rulers were bound to put an end to insults and blasphemies against God, regardless of any disturbance of civil life which might ensue. Luther made a beginning by exhorting the sovereign and the congregation to abolish the Mass at Wittenberg which, like Catholic worship in general, was a perpetual blasphemy of God. “The regular authorities” must rise up against “such blasphemy.” The scandal given being public, no indulgence was to be shown by Christians.[2226]Eventually every false doctrine was accounted a public scandal, i.e. every opinion expressed in writings or sermons which deviated from the true Evangel. “It is the duty” of the authorities, he says, “to punish public blasphemers ... and in the same way they should punish, or at least not brook, those who teach that Christ did not die for our sins, but that each one must make satisfaction for himself.”[2227]This, according to him, was notoriously the teaching of the Catholics.
But if the Papists and the Lutherans as they are called, “preach against each other in a parish, town or district” and neither party will yield, “then let the authorities step in and try the case, and whichever party does not agree with Scripture, let him be ordered to hold his tongue.”[2228]Thus the official delegated by the prince—where the prince himself was loath to take the chair—is to decide which is the true meaning of the Bible, and which party really conforms to it.
How opposed this was to the ground principles of the modern State it is scarcely necessary to point out here. The freedompostulated by the latter was absolutely unknown to Luther; had his mind ever risen to such heights he would never have proposed the farcical Bible examination to be held by the authorities.
The relation between such demands as these and Luther’s own former attitude has not escaped the censure of Protestant writers.
“Luther here contradicts himself,” remarks Drews;[2229]“as late as 1524 he had said that men must be allowed to disagree, and a year later that the authorities have no right to prevent every man from ‘teaching and believing whatever he wished, whether it be Gospel or lie’; it was sufficient if they checked the preaching of rebellion and any disturbance of the peace.”[2230]
The Elector Johann Frederick of Saxony adopted the view that uniformity of doctrine was called for. He would, so he declared, “recognise or tolerate no sects or divisions in his lands or principalities,” in order the better “to prevent harmful revolt and other unrighteousness.” But at the same time he assured his subjects that it was not his intention to “prescribe to anyone what he should hold or believe.”[2231]
Things drifted, thanks to Luther’s own action, slowly but surely towards an entire control of the Church by the State. Luther knew of no better means of stimulating the Evangelical rulers to take action in ecclesiastical things than by setting up before them the example of King David.
He describes in 1534, in his exposition of Psalm ci. (c.),[2232]how, in order to exterminate false doctrine, David “made a visitation of the whole of his kingdom.” “He always checked any public inroads of heresy. For the devil never idles or sleeps, hence neither must the spiritual authorities be idle or slumber.” “Oh what a great number of false teachers, idolaters and heretics was he not obliged to expel, or in other ways stop their mouths.... The true teachers on the other hand he had everywhere sought out, promoted, called, appointed and commanded to preach the Word of God purely and simply.... He himself diligently instituted, ordered and appointed true teachers everywhere, himself writing Psalms in which he points out how they are to teach and praise God.” “David in this was a pattern and masterpiece to all pious kings and lords ... showing them how they must not allow wicked men to lead souls astray.”[2233]“I say again, let whoever can, be another David and follow his example, more particularly the princes and lords.”[2234]David, so he continues later, led“pious kings and princes rightly and in a Christian manner to the churches,” but he was also a “model in secular government,” which “can have its own rule apart from the kingdom of God”; to this all Popish princes should restrict themselves and not try to instruct Christ how to rule His Church and spiritual realm.[2235]Hence all that he had once written quite generally of the separation of the kingdom of God with “its own rule” from the “worldly government” was in fact, as he now says more outspokenly, only to apply to the “false priestlings,” and their princes.But when according to David’s example a Lutheran preacher “by virtue of his office,” or a Lutheran prince, demanded the suppression of the false teaching, this “spiritual rule is nothing more than a service offered to God’s own supremacy”; the Lutheran prince is not thereby intruding on the “spiritual or divine authority but remains humbly submissive to it and its servant.”“For, when directed towards God and the service of His Sovereignty, everything must be equal and made to intermingle, whether it be termed spiritual or secular.” “Thus they must be united in the same obedience and kneaded together as it were in one cake.”[2236]—It is hardly possible to believe our eyes when we meet with such phrases coming from the same pen that had formerly so strongly championed the complete sundering of the spiritual from the temporal. Yet Luther even seeks to justify the contradiction on more serious grounds. When it was a case of the true Word of God and of the Evangel, then matters stood quite otherwise.“The secular and spiritual government” are most improperly confused, so he declares, when “spiritual or secular princes and lords seek to change and control the Word of God and to lay down what is to be taught or preached”; here he is referring to the non-Lutheran authorities. Quite a different thing is it “when David concerns himself with the divine or spiritual government,” and really restores God’s glory. Had David said: “My good people, act differently from what God has taught you,” then this would indeed have spelt a “confusion of the spiritual and temporal, of the divine and human government”—such as Luther’s opponents are now guilty of. But David, the servant of God and pattern of all pious princes and kings, because he acted otherwise, was adorned with such high and kingly virtues even in his temporal government that it must have been the work of God, i.e. His peculiar grace; but this same grace is with all pious princes in order that, under their sway and in spite of the hatred of the devil, the temporal rule and “God’s own Rule” may prosper. Supported by such grace David could say of the two authorities he combined: “I suffer neither ungodly men in the spiritual domain nor yet evildoers in the temporal.”[2237]
He describes in 1534, in his exposition of Psalm ci. (c.),[2232]how, in order to exterminate false doctrine, David “made a visitation of the whole of his kingdom.” “He always checked any public inroads of heresy. For the devil never idles or sleeps, hence neither must the spiritual authorities be idle or slumber.” “Oh what a great number of false teachers, idolaters and heretics was he not obliged to expel, or in other ways stop their mouths.... The true teachers on the other hand he had everywhere sought out, promoted, called, appointed and commanded to preach the Word of God purely and simply.... He himself diligently instituted, ordered and appointed true teachers everywhere, himself writing Psalms in which he points out how they are to teach and praise God.” “David in this was a pattern and masterpiece to all pious kings and lords ... showing them how they must not allow wicked men to lead souls astray.”[2233]“I say again, let whoever can, be another David and follow his example, more particularly the princes and lords.”[2234]David, so he continues later, led“pious kings and princes rightly and in a Christian manner to the churches,” but he was also a “model in secular government,” which “can have its own rule apart from the kingdom of God”; to this all Popish princes should restrict themselves and not try to instruct Christ how to rule His Church and spiritual realm.[2235]
Hence all that he had once written quite generally of the separation of the kingdom of God with “its own rule” from the “worldly government” was in fact, as he now says more outspokenly, only to apply to the “false priestlings,” and their princes.
But when according to David’s example a Lutheran preacher “by virtue of his office,” or a Lutheran prince, demanded the suppression of the false teaching, this “spiritual rule is nothing more than a service offered to God’s own supremacy”; the Lutheran prince is not thereby intruding on the “spiritual or divine authority but remains humbly submissive to it and its servant.”
“For, when directed towards God and the service of His Sovereignty, everything must be equal and made to intermingle, whether it be termed spiritual or secular.” “Thus they must be united in the same obedience and kneaded together as it were in one cake.”[2236]—It is hardly possible to believe our eyes when we meet with such phrases coming from the same pen that had formerly so strongly championed the complete sundering of the spiritual from the temporal. Yet Luther even seeks to justify the contradiction on more serious grounds. When it was a case of the true Word of God and of the Evangel, then matters stood quite otherwise.
“The secular and spiritual government” are most improperly confused, so he declares, when “spiritual or secular princes and lords seek to change and control the Word of God and to lay down what is to be taught or preached”; here he is referring to the non-Lutheran authorities. Quite a different thing is it “when David concerns himself with the divine or spiritual government,” and really restores God’s glory. Had David said: “My good people, act differently from what God has taught you,” then this would indeed have spelt a “confusion of the spiritual and temporal, of the divine and human government”—such as Luther’s opponents are now guilty of. But David, the servant of God and pattern of all pious princes and kings, because he acted otherwise, was adorned with such high and kingly virtues even in his temporal government that it must have been the work of God, i.e. His peculiar grace; but this same grace is with all pious princes in order that, under their sway and in spite of the hatred of the devil, the temporal rule and “God’s own Rule” may prosper. Supported by such grace David could say of the two authorities he combined: “I suffer neither ungodly men in the spiritual domain nor yet evildoers in the temporal.”[2237]
Thus, in the hands of a pious Evangelical prince, the co-existence of these two rules involves no disturbance of order. And they may all the more readily be put into the hand of one who serves God according to His “Word” seeing that there is in reality but a single power; according to Luther, the hierarchy having been destroyed, there was no one holding spiritual authority; as for the semblance of spiritual authority which the congregation had once possessed it had willingly resigned it into the hands of the Christian David on the princely throne. There is but one authority that embraces everything temporal and spiritual and that works in the two “governments” (read: spheres of life), i.e. in the temporal life of the subjects, which is founded on reason and earthly laws, and in the spiritual domain to which the Gospel lifts them up. In both orders man is admonished to obedience towards God by the pious ruler who regulates everything either himself or by means of the preachers.
Thus Luther’s conception of the State finally grows into a kind of theocracy.
The theocracy of the Israelites is therefore held up to the rulers in the example not only of David but also of the other pious Jewish kings. In the political sphere Old Testament imagery exercised far too great an influence on Luther and his arbitrary new creations. How widely different from the Jewish theocracy was it to see the Father of the country made the highest authority not merely on practical questions of Church government but even on differences concerning faith? The “absolute patriarch”[2238]at Luther’s express demand drives his negligent or reluctant subjects to hear the preachers; on him depends the introduction and use of the greater excommunication, should this weapon ever become necessary; he removes from their posts those professors of the theological or other faculties who oppose the ruling faith, just as he makes his authority felt on the preacher who forsakes the right path. He is, according to Luther, the chief guardian of the young and of all who need his protection, in order, that, where his subjects do not take thought for their salvation and act accordingly, he may “force them to do so, in the same way as he obligesthem to give their services for the repair of bridges, roads and ways, or to render such other services as their country may require.”[2239]
On one occasion Luther points out, that in the past, the Pope of Rome had been all in all. Now it is the sovereign of the land, who, as God’s own Vicar, is all in all.
Thus we have here, writes Frank Ward in his “Darstellung der Ansichten Luthers vom Staat,” “almost the counterpart of the old ecclesiastical absolutism, seeing that all ecclesiastical functions and conditions so far as they belong to the outward domain are put under the State.”[2240]Instead of its being “almost the counterpart,” it would be better to say that it was an absolute caricature of the supposed ecclesiastical absolutism of the past. Ward, however, goes on to say that in the chapter in question he had only shown how, “Luther gave the State an independent dignity and position, and how he had enlarged and strengthened its claims.”
In direct contrast to those writers who see in Luther’s political theory the foundation of the modern State, is a recent statement of Heinrich Boehmer’s.“Luther’s political and social views,” says this author,[2241]“are in every essential point quite mediæval, antiquated and unmodern. People speak of ‘Luther’s views’ or even of ‘Luther’s teaching on the State and society.’ But it would be better to refrain from using such terms which can only serve to arouse false expectations. As little as the reformer was familiar with the words state and society, so little did he know their meaning. For no State or society in the modern sense of the word existed at the time in central or northern Germany, but merely a large number of bodies somewhat resembling States, all of which, however, fell far short of the ideal of a State.” He goes on to explain, that, for this reason, Luther always speaks to the “authorities,” they being in his eyes the most potent factor in the political organisations he knew; yet, in determining their duties, “his mind moves on quite mediæval lines”; “in the matter of political theory he is far behind even Thomas of Aquin, for Thomas had, in the Italian cities, an example of a far more highly developed State, whilst in the school of Aristotle he had made acquaintance with a number of political ideas and views which had led him to a very thorough study of politics.” Boehmer points out that, according to Luther, the Natural Law upbears the outward order with which alone he was conversant—viz. thelanded-aristocratic society which predominated at the time of the reformation—until it came to appear as almost a divine institution, any attempt to overthrow which amounted to a crime, “a view which indeed explains much of the success of Lutheranism, but which is anything but modern.”[2242]Luther’s “Patriarchal theory,” according to H. Boehmer, had an even greater influence on the political conditions of Lutheran countries than his other theory of the rights of the nobility. The princes within the domain of the new church system entered eagerly into the theory of their supposed paternal rights and finally built it out into a quite insufferable absolutism. Such an undue growth of the secular power was the more to be feared seeing that any independent spiritual power, which might, as in the Middle Ages, have served as a counterweight, no longer existed, having been swallowed up in the authority of the prince. Everything had indeed been secularised, and, to the Lutheran ruler, as God’s own representative, it now was left to direct the religious and temporal concerns of the population on the lines laid down in the Bible.“The Lutheran prince,” says Boehmer, “as father of the country, undertook to provide for his subjects in every department of life; his rule was absolute, though indeed patriarchal, an ideal of the State quite in accordance with Luther’s views.”[2243]“Any separation or division of Church and State Luther neither recognised nor desired,” now that he had invested the Evangelical princes with the supreme episcopate.[2244]The term “Zwangskultur,” often used of the absolutism obtaining in the Lutheran order of society, is not altogether incorrect, in spite of the protests of Protestant theologians. Other Protestant authors find a parallel between Luther’s view of the State and certain late mediæval ones; both, according to them, have been influenced by humanism, with its Cæsarean conception of unfreedom, and by theocratic absolutism.Carl Sell notes how the Reformation, “in its own way, put new life into the mediæval idea of a new theocracy.” “How deeply the theocratical idea was rooted in the Protestant State-system may be seen from the time it took before the States would consent to surrender their religious character.”[2245]After the Reformation, says G. Steinhausen, “the theological spirit more than ever laid hold of the world and mankind and fettered the ardent longing for freedom. Herein lies the chief harm wrought by the Reformation.”[2246]“It was the Reformation,” so O. Gierke says, “that broughtabout the energetic revival of the theocratic ideal. In spite of all their differences Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli and Calvin agree in emphasising the Christian call, and, consequently, the divine right of the secular authority. Indeed, on the one hand by subordinating the Church more or less to the State, and on the other by making the State’s authority dependent on its fulfilling its religious duties, they give to the Pauline dictum ‘All authority comes from God’ a far wider scope than it had ever had before.”[2247]
In direct contrast to those writers who see in Luther’s political theory the foundation of the modern State, is a recent statement of Heinrich Boehmer’s.
“Luther’s political and social views,” says this author,[2241]“are in every essential point quite mediæval, antiquated and unmodern. People speak of ‘Luther’s views’ or even of ‘Luther’s teaching on the State and society.’ But it would be better to refrain from using such terms which can only serve to arouse false expectations. As little as the reformer was familiar with the words state and society, so little did he know their meaning. For no State or society in the modern sense of the word existed at the time in central or northern Germany, but merely a large number of bodies somewhat resembling States, all of which, however, fell far short of the ideal of a State.” He goes on to explain, that, for this reason, Luther always speaks to the “authorities,” they being in his eyes the most potent factor in the political organisations he knew; yet, in determining their duties, “his mind moves on quite mediæval lines”; “in the matter of political theory he is far behind even Thomas of Aquin, for Thomas had, in the Italian cities, an example of a far more highly developed State, whilst in the school of Aristotle he had made acquaintance with a number of political ideas and views which had led him to a very thorough study of politics.” Boehmer points out that, according to Luther, the Natural Law upbears the outward order with which alone he was conversant—viz. thelanded-aristocratic society which predominated at the time of the reformation—until it came to appear as almost a divine institution, any attempt to overthrow which amounted to a crime, “a view which indeed explains much of the success of Lutheranism, but which is anything but modern.”[2242]
Luther’s “Patriarchal theory,” according to H. Boehmer, had an even greater influence on the political conditions of Lutheran countries than his other theory of the rights of the nobility. The princes within the domain of the new church system entered eagerly into the theory of their supposed paternal rights and finally built it out into a quite insufferable absolutism. Such an undue growth of the secular power was the more to be feared seeing that any independent spiritual power, which might, as in the Middle Ages, have served as a counterweight, no longer existed, having been swallowed up in the authority of the prince. Everything had indeed been secularised, and, to the Lutheran ruler, as God’s own representative, it now was left to direct the religious and temporal concerns of the population on the lines laid down in the Bible.
“The Lutheran prince,” says Boehmer, “as father of the country, undertook to provide for his subjects in every department of life; his rule was absolute, though indeed patriarchal, an ideal of the State quite in accordance with Luther’s views.”[2243]
“Any separation or division of Church and State Luther neither recognised nor desired,” now that he had invested the Evangelical princes with the supreme episcopate.[2244]
The term “Zwangskultur,” often used of the absolutism obtaining in the Lutheran order of society, is not altogether incorrect, in spite of the protests of Protestant theologians. Other Protestant authors find a parallel between Luther’s view of the State and certain late mediæval ones; both, according to them, have been influenced by humanism, with its Cæsarean conception of unfreedom, and by theocratic absolutism.
Carl Sell notes how the Reformation, “in its own way, put new life into the mediæval idea of a new theocracy.” “How deeply the theocratical idea was rooted in the Protestant State-system may be seen from the time it took before the States would consent to surrender their religious character.”[2245]
After the Reformation, says G. Steinhausen, “the theological spirit more than ever laid hold of the world and mankind and fettered the ardent longing for freedom. Herein lies the chief harm wrought by the Reformation.”[2246]
“It was the Reformation,” so O. Gierke says, “that broughtabout the energetic revival of the theocratic ideal. In spite of all their differences Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli and Calvin agree in emphasising the Christian call, and, consequently, the divine right of the secular authority. Indeed, on the one hand by subordinating the Church more or less to the State, and on the other by making the State’s authority dependent on its fulfilling its religious duties, they give to the Pauline dictum ‘All authority comes from God’ a far wider scope than it had ever had before.”[2247]
If anyone ever really believed that the modern State was in any way embodied in Luther’s ideal or that he paved the way for it, the easiest way to disprove such an assumption would be to show that the most essential feature of the modern State is entirely wanting in the Lutheran, patriarchal one, viz. freedom and the political co-operation of the people, and, above all, the vital atmosphere of personal and corporate independence in religious matters.
In point of fact the most that can be argued is that Luther to some extent, though in an entirely negative way, paved the road for the modern conception of the State.
This he did by his relentless opposition to the Church, which had so long held sway. As early as the days of Boniface VIII attempts had been made to curtail her action in politics. The efforts of some of the Catholic sovereigns, who, without denying the inherent rights of the spiritual authority, laboured to establish State-Churches also tended in the same direction. Luther was, however, the first who sought to destroy all ecclesiastical authority, as a mere symbol of Antichrist. Hence, for those rulers who took his part, one of the chief obstacles that had withstood the growth of modern conditions was swept away. Nevertheless, wellnigh three hundred years, full of gloomy experiences, had to elapse before a way could be found out of the new labyrinth of despotism, indolence and disorder; and, all this while, the theocratic patriarch of Lutheranism almost invariably stood as an obstacle in the way of development.
Frank Ward may indeed assert, that it is possible “to appeal at least to the spirit of his theory of the State, if not to its every detail.”[2248]This, however, is only possible if by“its spirit” we understand not what was new but the old, wholesome, traditional elements which Luther retained, i.e. the political ideas handed down by antiquity and the Christian philosophy of the past, on which he so skilfully impressed his own drastic touch. To these olden elements Luther was, however, scarcely fair.
According to what he says and reiterates there had devolved on him alone the incredibly onerous task of finding a way out of the gruesome darkness into which the relations between prince and hierarchy, State and Church, spiritual and temporal order had been plunged in the past: “This is how things stood then. No one had heard or taught, nor did anyone know anything concerning the secular authority, whence it came, what its office or work was, or how it should serve God. The most learned men—I will not name them—looked upon the secular power as a heathen, human and ungodly thing, as a state dangerous to salvation.... In short princes and lords, even such as wished to be pious, regarded their station and office as of no account.... Thus the Pope and the clergy were at that time all in all, over all and in all, like a very god in the world, and the secular power lay unknown and uncared for in the darkness.”[2249]Yet he himself had abased the authorities by reducing them in his writing of 1523 to the position of “jailers and hangmen,” working in a domain foreign to all that was spiritual.[2250]This, of course, was at a time when he had not as yet found patrons amongst the rulers as he was to do later. According to him, those who wielded the secular power, i.e. the princes, were no Christians. In 1522 he complains of the princes to whom he had appealed in vain: “Now they let everything go and one stands in the way of the other. Some even help and further the cause of Antichrist. They are at loggerheads and do not show themselves at all willing to help matters on.”[2251]Thus, according to him, Christ is left to Himself; but “He is the Lord of life and death.... Together with Him we too shall conquer and despise even the princes.”[2252]“God Himself will shortly make an end of Popery by His Word.... A new Church will arise but not by the doing of the princes but of those in whom the Word of God has really taken root.”[2253]Luther then wished, as we have already shown, to bring about the establishment of a Congregational Church; later on he evendreamed of assembling together only the true believers. As, however, the Congregational Churches did not thrive and as it proved impossible to carry out the scheme of a Church apart, he allowed the State to intervene, and, with its help, there came the National Church; this soon grew into a State-Church with the sovereign at its head.Luther still remained, however, the great teacher. He continued to vaunt his ambiguous “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt.” In 1529 he even related how Duke Frederick had caused this writing to be copied and “specially bound; he was very fond of it because it showed him what his position was.”[2254]In 1533, looking back on the whole of his writings concerning the authorities he says: “In Popery such views of the secular power lay under the bench”; “since the time of the Apostles no doctor or scribe” has instructed the worldly estates so “well and outspokenly” as he, not even “Ambrose and Augustine.”[2255]We may here recall the sober and perfectly true remark of Fr. v. Bezold. Luther may have plumed himself on having been the first to revive a right understanding of and respect for the secular authority, but that “the indefensibility of this and similar claims has long since been demonstrated.”[2256]
According to what he says and reiterates there had devolved on him alone the incredibly onerous task of finding a way out of the gruesome darkness into which the relations between prince and hierarchy, State and Church, spiritual and temporal order had been plunged in the past: “This is how things stood then. No one had heard or taught, nor did anyone know anything concerning the secular authority, whence it came, what its office or work was, or how it should serve God. The most learned men—I will not name them—looked upon the secular power as a heathen, human and ungodly thing, as a state dangerous to salvation.... In short princes and lords, even such as wished to be pious, regarded their station and office as of no account.... Thus the Pope and the clergy were at that time all in all, over all and in all, like a very god in the world, and the secular power lay unknown and uncared for in the darkness.”[2249]
Yet he himself had abased the authorities by reducing them in his writing of 1523 to the position of “jailers and hangmen,” working in a domain foreign to all that was spiritual.[2250]This, of course, was at a time when he had not as yet found patrons amongst the rulers as he was to do later. According to him, those who wielded the secular power, i.e. the princes, were no Christians. In 1522 he complains of the princes to whom he had appealed in vain: “Now they let everything go and one stands in the way of the other. Some even help and further the cause of Antichrist. They are at loggerheads and do not show themselves at all willing to help matters on.”[2251]Thus, according to him, Christ is left to Himself; but “He is the Lord of life and death.... Together with Him we too shall conquer and despise even the princes.”[2252]“God Himself will shortly make an end of Popery by His Word.... A new Church will arise but not by the doing of the princes but of those in whom the Word of God has really taken root.”[2253]Luther then wished, as we have already shown, to bring about the establishment of a Congregational Church; later on he evendreamed of assembling together only the true believers. As, however, the Congregational Churches did not thrive and as it proved impossible to carry out the scheme of a Church apart, he allowed the State to intervene, and, with its help, there came the National Church; this soon grew into a State-Church with the sovereign at its head.
Luther still remained, however, the great teacher. He continued to vaunt his ambiguous “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt.” In 1529 he even related how Duke Frederick had caused this writing to be copied and “specially bound; he was very fond of it because it showed him what his position was.”[2254]In 1533, looking back on the whole of his writings concerning the authorities he says: “In Popery such views of the secular power lay under the bench”; “since the time of the Apostles no doctor or scribe” has instructed the worldly estates so “well and outspokenly” as he, not even “Ambrose and Augustine.”[2255]
We may here recall the sober and perfectly true remark of Fr. v. Bezold. Luther may have plumed himself on having been the first to revive a right understanding of and respect for the secular authority, but that “the indefensibility of this and similar claims has long since been demonstrated.”[2256]
Luther’s error is evident, though unfortunately not to all, as we can convince ourselves by reading the eulogies of Luther which are still so common under the pen of Protestant writers; for instance, that Luther had “deepened Augustine’s view of the State”; that he was ever moving forward “in a straight line,” expanding and perfecting the knowledge already acquired; and that even in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt” “he was already at his best,” etc.
It may, therefore, be all the more useful to look a little more closely into one side of the present subject which has not yet been dealt with but which leads to interesting disclosures, viz. into the question of the various circumstances, some outward, some inward and personal, which led Luther to evolve his theory of the patriarchal, absolutist State. Here the Visitation of 1527-28 stands out as a milestone on the road of his development.
It was a common phenomenon in all the earlier struggles against the ecclesiastical hierarchy for the separatists to seek for support and assistance from the secular power and the State. From the time of the earliest controversies in the Church this tendency had been noticed among those who broke away. Luther too, from the time of his first public rupture, had cast his eyes on the secular power; nay, even earlier, in his Commentary on Romans, he betrays a tendency to put the secular before the spiritual.[2257]
To these ideas he gave full play in the call to reform the Church which he addressed “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation.”
For the next few years, however, the ideas are less to the fore. Luther was very well aware that a quiet and gradual procedure would appeal far more to the then Elector, Frederick the Wise, than any urging on of the innovations at high pressure and with State interference. The Elector was in fact so averse to taking any strong measures, that on the contrary he frequently impressed on the Wittenberg leaders the need there was for caution.
Matters assumed another aspect, when, in 1525, there came a change of ruler. The Elector Johann of Saxony was a zealous friend of Luther’s and soon became the real patron of Lutheranism. His attitude towards the innovations, taken with Luther’s new tendencies, constituted a prime factor in the rise of a State-governed Church.
Another factor was the condition of the Lutheran congregations which had so far sprung up. They were scattered and devoid of organisation. Not seldom they bore within them seeds of dissension born as they had been out of quarrels within the parishes, and maintained for the most part only by the violent action of a majority of the council. The petty rulers naturally sought to link themselves up with the greater powers so as to maintain both the ecclesiastical innovations and their newly acquired rights. The sovereign was a pillar of strength on whom they leaned, when in doubt, when it was a question of defending the preachers they hadappointed, of removing persons they regarded with disfavour, or of allaying disputes amongst the burghers.
To all this, however, must be added a further circumstance which contributed to bring about the State supremacy of a later date, viz., the corruption of many of the newly formed congregations, a corruption which urgently called for a strong hand and adequate means of coercion. “When, after the Peasant War,” writes Carl Müller, “the dreadful decline in things ecclesiastical made itself felt, the parsonages and schools threatening to fall into ruins and the agricultural population to relapse into savagery, the time arrived for the rulers of the land to come into greater prominence. It was now no longer a question of individual congregations but rather of the whole country, and above all of the rising generation.”[2258]
The intervention of the prince subsequent to the victory over the peasants in 1525 also greatly promoted the increased devotion with which men of influence, Luther included, attached themselves to the authority of the ruler as a bulwark against revolution. The arrogance of the country folk had to be broken by strengthening the power of the sovereign; this Luther repeated so often and so loudly that his foes began to call him a footlicker of the princes.
The decisive importance, for the inward development of the new Church system and for Luther’s position, of the Visitation of the churches of the Saxon Electorate held in 1528 has already been pointed out cursorily.[2259]The Visitation brought to a head a growth which had long been in process. The princely supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs which then came about and was formally sanctioned in Saxony became, with Luther’s consent, which was partly given freely, partly wrung from him, something permanent in the birthplace of the new Church, the Visitations continuing to be carried out in the same way by the prince of the land. Saxony provided a model which was gradually followed in other districtswhere Lutheranism prevailed, while the then tendency to strengthen the reigning houses so as to enable them to hold their own against Emperor and Empire also exercised a powerful influence.
The Electoral Visitation which Luther had counselled and to which he most zealously lent his help, had for its aim, according to his own words, which we must take in their most literal sense, “the constituting of the churches” because “everything is now so mangled.”[2260]So much did he expect from it that he even expressed the hope that it would clear up for the future the whole problem of the new “Church” and its organisation, which, strange to say, he had never seen fit to think out theoretically. As a matter of fact it was “cleared up,” and that by the very programme for the Visitation issued by the Court. What was to be instituted was to be neither a Church apart, nor a number of free Congregational Churches, nor a great independent National Church, but a State Establishment, a compulsory Church in fact, though calling itself a National Church upheld by the charity of the State.[2261]
We have the programme of the Visitation in the three documents which follow in chronological order, the “Instructions” for the Visitors themselves issued by the Elector on June 16, 1527,[2262]the “Instructions of the Visitors addressed to the ministers of the Saxon Electorate” and the Preface to the same which Luther composed, both of which appeared in print together in March, 1528.[2263]
It can scarcely be doubted that Luther had a hand in the drafting of the Electoral Instructions, which form a sort of Magna Charta of princely supremacy in Church matters. All his previous written communications with the Court had been tending towards this end. In his earliest efforts to bring about the Visitation he had told the ruler that it pertained to his “office” to see that the Evangelical workerswere remunerated, that, into his hands “as the supreme head” had fallen “all the monasteries and foundations” and, with them, the “duty and obligation of seeing into a matter in which no one else could or had a right to interfere.” “Not God’s command alone but our own needs require that some step should here be taken.” Thus he demands that the prince, by virtue of his own authority as “one appointed by God for the matter and empowered to act,” should nominate four persons as Visitors, who by his “orders should arrange for the erection and support of schools and parsonages where this was wanted”; of these persons, two were to attend to the material needs, and two who had had a theological training were to examine into the doctrine, preaching and performance of spiritual duties.[2264]
Such were the “principles which were eventually carried into practice. For ages after, the Lutheran sovereigns asserted their right to draw up rules concerning the doctrine and constitution of their National Churches, and, to this end, not only laid claim to the old ecclesiastical revenues but also to the right to levy special taxes on their subjects.”[2265]
Luther was moved to take up his new standpoint not merely by the needs of the day but also by pious Lutherans, such as Nicholas Hausmann, the pastor of Zwickau, who by examples taken from the Bible had pointed out to the Elector himself what his rights and duties were in this field;[2266]an even stronger influence was, maybe, exerted on him by the lawyers of the Court, who were intent on making the most of the rights of the sovereign, especially by Chancellor Brück, their spokesman, with whom Luther was brought into closer contact when seeking to remedy the existing distress. He himself, as we shall see, hesitated a little about entering upon this new course. The supremacy of the prince nevertheless seemed inevitably called for by the secularisation of Church property, also for the appointment and payment of the pastors, for the removal of incapablepreachers and those who excited the mob,—especially those of “fanatic” inclinations—and, lastly, for the final and violent uprooting of Catholic worship where it still lingered.
A Visitation was begun in the Electorate in Feb., 1527, by a very characteristic commission appointed by the sovereign assisted by the University of Wittenberg; it was composed of the following members: the lawyer, Hieronymus Schurff, the two noblemen Hans von der Planitz and Asmus von Haubitz, and Melanchthon. The Electoral Instructions of June, 1527, referred to above were the result of previous experience, and had the approval of both Luther and Melanchthon. The practical experience already gained also proved useful in the drawing up of the “Unterricht der Visitatorn an die Pharhern” which was of a more theological and practical character. It is almost entirely the work of Melanchthon, though it was formally approved and accepted by Luther after some slight alterations. It was sent to Luther by the Elector, who had carefully gone into its details, and who directed him to look through it and also write an historical preface (“narration”) to it, though the work as a whole was to appear to come from the Court. In due time both the “Instructions” and the Preface were sent to the press by the Elector.
What had transpired of the contents of the “Unterricht” had already aroused considerable opposition within the Lutheran camp; it was displeasing to the zealots to find Melanchthon again returning half-way to the Catholic doctrine in the matter of penance, free-will and good works. They openly declared that official Lutheranism was “slinking back.” After its appearance further criticism was aroused among both Protestants and Catholics. Of the Catholic writers, Cochlæus ironically drew attention in his “Lutherus septiceps” to the withdrawal that had taken place from Luther’s former crass assertions. He also incidentally describes the strange appearance of the State Visitors: “Here comes the Visitor wearing a new kind of mitre, setting up a new form of Papacy, prescribing new laws for divine worship, and reviving what had long since fallen into disuse and dragging it forth into the light once more.”[2267]Joachim von der Heyden in his printed letter toCatherine Bora even declared, that, in the rules for the Visitation, Luther “had resumed the Imperial rights,” which he had “for a while discarded.” He is referring to certain of the rules dealing with Church property, which were to Luther’s personal interest.[2268]
The Elector’s Instruction to the Visitors themselves is, however, of even greater importance in the history of the rise of the Lutheran State Church.
“In this Instruction, not only do we meet everywhere with traces of Luther’s wishes,” but it also follows him “in applying the property of monasteries and pious foundations to the support of the churches and schools. In all this, true to Luther’s ideas, it sees the duty of the sovereign who constitutes the Christian authority.”[2269]
In this Instruction the attitude adopted by the Elector with regard to doctrine is, that, in view of the Word of God,[2270]he, the supreme lord, is not free to brook the practice of false worship and the teaching of false dogma in his lands. What the true doctrine really is, is taken for granted as known, though it is never expressly stated. On the other hand, in the Preface to the “Unterricht,” Luther tells, how, “now, by the unspeakable grace of God the Gospel has mercifully been brought back to us once more, or, rather, has dawned on us for the first time.”[2271]It was the duty of the sovereign, so the Instruction says, to abolish public scandals and hence to remove unworthy clerics. He must proclaim the Gospel to his subjects by means of those called to do so, and admonish them through the Visitors to take the same to heart. The congregations must, when necessary, assist in supporting the preachers. The Visitors had the right to insist in the sovereign’s name on the contributions called for by the law, and into their hands the Elector committed the management of the Church property.The ruler must take steps, as the divinely appointed authority, in obedience to the Word of God, and in the interests of his country to abolish the remnants of Popish error by means of a Visitation. Those ministers who were papistically inclined were simply to be removed and all the preachers “who advocate, preach or hold any erroneous doctrine are to be told to quit our lands in all haste and also, that, should they return, they will be severely dealt with.” Whoever refuses to abide by the regulations of the sovereign in the dispensing of the sacraments, is to leave the Electorate. For, “though it is not our intention toprescribe to anyone what he is to hold or believe, yet we will not tolerate any sect or division in our principality in order to prevent harmful revolt and other mischief.”[2272]Thus a formal “Inquisition” was introduced, even to the very name, which was to be undertaken by the Visitors in respect not merely of the clergy but even of the laity, attention being paid to the information laid before the Visitors by the officials and members of the nobility. Any layman who refused to desist from his “error” when summoned to do so was obliged within a certain term to sell out and leave the country “with a warning of being severely dealt with” similar to that addressed to clergymen.
In this Instruction the attitude adopted by the Elector with regard to doctrine is, that, in view of the Word of God,[2270]he, the supreme lord, is not free to brook the practice of false worship and the teaching of false dogma in his lands. What the true doctrine really is, is taken for granted as known, though it is never expressly stated. On the other hand, in the Preface to the “Unterricht,” Luther tells, how, “now, by the unspeakable grace of God the Gospel has mercifully been brought back to us once more, or, rather, has dawned on us for the first time.”[2271]It was the duty of the sovereign, so the Instruction says, to abolish public scandals and hence to remove unworthy clerics. He must proclaim the Gospel to his subjects by means of those called to do so, and admonish them through the Visitors to take the same to heart. The congregations must, when necessary, assist in supporting the preachers. The Visitors had the right to insist in the sovereign’s name on the contributions called for by the law, and into their hands the Elector committed the management of the Church property.
The ruler must take steps, as the divinely appointed authority, in obedience to the Word of God, and in the interests of his country to abolish the remnants of Popish error by means of a Visitation. Those ministers who were papistically inclined were simply to be removed and all the preachers “who advocate, preach or hold any erroneous doctrine are to be told to quit our lands in all haste and also, that, should they return, they will be severely dealt with.” Whoever refuses to abide by the regulations of the sovereign in the dispensing of the sacraments, is to leave the Electorate. For, “though it is not our intention toprescribe to anyone what he is to hold or believe, yet we will not tolerate any sect or division in our principality in order to prevent harmful revolt and other mischief.”[2272]
Thus a formal “Inquisition” was introduced, even to the very name, which was to be undertaken by the Visitors in respect not merely of the clergy but even of the laity, attention being paid to the information laid before the Visitors by the officials and members of the nobility. Any layman who refused to desist from his “error” when summoned to do so was obliged within a certain term to sell out and leave the country “with a warning of being severely dealt with” similar to that addressed to clergymen.
Hence by means of this “Instruction” the foundation was laid for the State supremacy in religious matters. “Spalatin’s wish was now fulfilled,” says N. Paulus; “the sovereign had now put the ‘Christian bit’ in the mouth of all the clergy, and they could now preach nothing else than the Lutheran doctrine.”[2273]“Oh, what a noble work it would be,” Spalatin had written in 1525, when first proposing such a use of the ‘bit,’ “and what great good would result for the whole of Christendom.”[2274]“Spalatin’s pious wish,” drily remarks Th. Kolde, “was to be more thoroughly realised than probably he bargained for.”[2275]
Luther himself was pleased with the Instructions. He never ventured to bring forward any real objection against it, greatly as the document ran counter to his earlier principles; after the appearance of the “Unterricht” addressed to the pastors, headed by Luther’s remarkable preface, it was once more printed without any protest. Yet the Preface bears witness to his misgivings.
The standpoint taken up by the Wittenberg Professor in his Preface to the “Unterricht” is so curious that it has even been said that a “manifest contradiction” exists between it and the Instructions which follow.[2276]
In it, albeit cautiously, he made certain reservations, which show that the absolutist system of Church government proposed by the Prince did not really appeal to him. It is clear he did not feel quite at ease about the Instructions, because of his former advocacy of the independence of the congregations in ecclesiastical matters, because of the future subserviency of Church to State and because the directions were at variance with honest convictions deeply rooted in his mind from the days of his youth. At the same time his misgivings are expressed only with the greatest restraint.