, Charles
3
! with the very handcuffs of his prejudices he would knock out the brains (nay, that is impossible, but,) he would split the skulls of our
Cristo-galli
, translate the word as you like:—French Christians, or coxcombs!
Ib.p. 231-2.
"Let Witzell know, (said Luther) that David's wars and battles, which he fought, were more pleasing to God than the fastings and prayings of the best, of the honestest, and of the holiest monks and friars; much more than the works of our new ridiculous and superstitious friars."
A cordial, rich and juicy speech, such as shaped itself into, and lived anew in, the Gustavus Adolphuses.
Chap. XV. p. 233-4.
"God most certainly heareth them that pray in faith, and granteth when and how he pleaseth, and knoweth most profitable for them. We must also know, that when our prayers tend to the sanctifying of his name, and to the increase and honor of his kingdom (also that we pray according to his will) then most certainly he heareth. But when we pray contrary to these points, then we are not heard; for God doth nothing against his Name, his kingdom, and his will."
Then (saith the understanding,
Greek: Tò phrónaema sarkòs
see previous image
) what doth prayer effect? If A—prayer = B., and A + prayer = B, prayer = O. The attempt to answer this argument by admitting its invalidity relatively to God, but asserting the efficacy of prayer relatively to the pray-er or precant himself, is merely staving off the objection a single step. For this effect on the devout soul is produced by an act of God. The true answer is, prayer is an idea, and
ens spirituale
, out of the cognizance of the understanding.
The spiritual mind receives the answer in the contemplation of the idea, life as
deitas diffusa
. We can set the life in efficient motion, but not contrary to the form or type. The errors and false theories of great men sometimes, perhaps most often, arise out of true ideas falsified by degenerating into conceptions; or the mind excited to action by an inworking idea, the understanding works in the same direction according to its kind, and produces a counterfeit, in which the mind rests.
This I believe to be the case with the scheme of emanation in Plotinus. God is made a first and consequently a comparative intensity, and matter the last; the whole thence finite; and thence its conceivability. But we must admit a gradation of intensities in reality.
Chap. XVI. p. 247.
"When governors and rulers are enemies to God's word, then our duty is to depart, to sell and forsake all we have, to fly from one place to another, as Christ commandeth; we must make and prepare no uproars nor tumults by reason of the Gospel, but we must suffer all things."
Right. But then it must be the lawful rulers; those in whom the sovereign or supreme power is lodged by the known laws and constitution of the country. Where the laws and constitutional liberties of the nation are trampled on, the subjects do not lose, and are not in conscience bound to forego, their right of resistance, because they are Christians, or because it happens to be a matter of religion, in which their rights are violated. And this was Luther's opinion. Whether, if a Popish Czar shall act as our James II. acted, the Russian Greekists would be justified in doing with him what the English Protestants justifiably did with regard to James, is a knot which I shall not attempt to cut; though I guess the Russians would, by cutting their Czar's throat.
Ib.
'But no man will do this, except he be so sure of his doctrine and religion, as that, although I myself should play the fool, and should recant and deny this my doctrine and religion (which God forbid), he notwithstanding therefore would not yield, but say, "If Luther, or an angel from heaven, should teach otherwise,Let him be accursed."'
Well and nobly said, thou rare black swan! This, this is the Church. Where this is found, there is the Church of Christ, though but twenty in the whole of the congregation; and were twenty such in two hundred different places, the Church would be entire in each. Without this no Church.
Ib.p. 248.
"And he sent for one of his chiefest privy councillors, named Lord JohnVon Minkwitz, and said unto him; 'You have heard my father say, (running with him at tilt) that to sit upright on horseback maketh a good tilter. If therefore it be good and laudable in temporal tilting to sit upright; how much more is it now praiseworthy in God's cause to sit, to stand, and to go uprightly and just!'"
Princely. So Shakspeare would have made a Prince Elector talk. The metaphor is so grandly in character.
Chap. XVII. p. 249.
"Signa sunt subinde facta, minora; res autem et facta subinde creverunt."
A valuable remark. As the substance waxed, that is, became more evident, the ceremonial sign waned, till at length in the Eucharist the
signum
united itself with the
significatum
, and became consubstantial. The ceremonial sign, namely, the eating the bread and drinking the wine, became a symbol, that is, a solemn instance and exemplification of the class of mysterious acts, which we are, or as Christians should be, performing daily and hourly in every social duty and recreation. This is indeed to re-create the man in and by Christ. Sublimely did the Fathers call the Eucharist the extension of the Incarnation: only I should have preferred the perpetuation and application of the Incarnation.
Ib.
A bare writing without a seal is of no force.
Metaphors are sorry logic, especially metaphors from human and those too conventional usages to the ordinances of eternal wisdom.
Ib.p. 250.
Luther said, "No. A Christian is wholly and altogether sanctified. * * We must take sure hold on Baptism by faith, as then we shall be, yea, already are, sanctified. In this sort David nameth himself holy."
A deep thought. Strong meat for men. It must not be offered for milk.
Chap. xxi. p. 276.
Then I will declare him openly to the Church, and in this manner I will say: "Loving friends, I declare unto you, how that N. N. hath been admonished: first, by myself in private, afterwards also by two chaplains, thirdly, by two aldermen and churchwardens, and those of the assembly: yet notwithstanding he will not desist from his sinful kind of life. Wherefore I earnestly desire you to assist and aid me, to kneel down with me, and let us pray against him, and deliver him over to the Devil."
Luther did not mean that this should be done all at once; but that a day should be appointed for the congregation to meet for joint consultation, and according to the resolutions passed to choose and commission such and such persons to wait on the offender, and to exhort, persuade and threaten him in the name of the congregation: then, if after due time allowed, this proved fruitless, to kneel down with the minister, &c. Surely, were it only feasible, nothing could be more desirable. But alas! it is not compatible with a Church national, the congregations of which are therefore not gathered nor elected, or with a Church established by law; for law and discipline are mutually destructive of each other, being the same as involuntary and voluntary penance.
Chap. xxii. p. 290.
Wicliffe and Huss opposed and assaulted the manner of life and conversation in Popedom. But I chiefly do oppose and resist their doctrine; I affirm roundly and plainly that they teach not aright. Thereto am I called. I take the goose by the neck, and set the knife to the throat. When I can maintain that the Pope's doctrine is false, (which I have proved and maintained), then I will easily prove and maintain that their manner of life is evil.
This is a remark of deep insight:
verum vere Lutheranum
.
Ib.p. 291.
Ambition and pride (said Luther), are the rankest poison in the Church when they are possessed by preachers. Zuinglius thereby was misled, who did what pleased himself * * * He wrote, "Ye honorable and good princes must pardon me, in that I give you not your titles; for the glass windows are as well illustrious as ye."
One might fancy, in the Vision-of-Mirza style, that all the angry, contemptuous, haughty expressions of good and zealous men, gallant staff-officers in the army of Christ, formed a rick of straw and stubble, which at the last day is to be divided into more or fewer haycocks, according to the number of kind and unfeignedly humble and charitable thoughts and speeches that had intervened, and that these were placed in a pile, leap-frog fashion, in the narrow road to the gate of Paradise; and burst into flame as the zeal of the individual approached,—so that he must leap over and through them. Now I cannot help thinking, that this dear man of God, heroic Luther, will find more opportunities of showing his agility, and reach the gate in a greater sweat and with more blisters
a parte post
than his brother hero, Zuinglius. I guess that the comments of the latter on the Prophets will be found almost sterile in these tiger-lilies and brimstone flowers of polemic rhetoric, compared with the controversy of the former with our Henry VIII., his replies to the Pope's Bulls, and the like.
By the by, the joke of the 'glass windows' is lost in the translation. The German for illustrious is
durchlauchtig
, that is, transparent or translucent.
Ib.
When we leave to God his name, his kingdom and will, then will he also give unto us our daily bread, and will remit our sins, and deliver us from the devil and all evil. Only his honor he will have to himself.
A brief but most excellent comment on the Lord's Prayer.
Ib.p. 297.
There was never any that understood the Old Testament so well as St. Paul, except only John the Baptist.
I cannot conjecture what Luther had in his mind when he made this exception.
Chap. XXVII. p. 335.
I could wish (said Luther) that the Princes and States of the Empire would make an assembly, and hold a council and a union both in doctrine and ceremonies, so that every one might not break in and run on with such insolency and presumption according to his own brains, as already is begun, whereby many good hearts are offended.
Strange heart of man! Would Luther have given up the doctrine of justification by faith alone, had the majority of the Council decided in favor of the Arminian scheme? If not, by what right could he expect Œcolampadius or Zuinglius to recant their convictions respecting the Eucharist, or the Baptists theirs on Infant Baptism, to the same authority? In fact, the wish expressed in this passage must be considered as a mere flying thought shot out by the mood and feeling of the moment, a sort of conversational flying-fish that dropped as soon as the moisture of the fins had evaporated. The paragraph in p. 336, of what Councils ought to order, should be considered Luther's genuine opinion.
Ib.p. 337.
The council of Nice, held after the Apostles' time, (said Luther) was the very best and purest; but soon after in the time of the Emperor Constantine, it was weakened by the Arians.
What Arius himself meant, I do not know: what the modern Arians teach, I utterly condemn; but that the great council of Ariminum was either Arian or heretical I could never discover, or descry any essential difference between its decisions and the Nicene; though I seem to find a serious difference of the pseudo-Athanasian Creed from both. If there be a difference between the Councils of Nicea and Ariminum, it perhaps consists in this; —that the Nicene was the more anxious to assert the equal Divinity in the Filial subordination; the Ariminian to maintain the Filial subordination in the equal Divinity.
In
both there are three self-subsistent and only one self-originated: —which is the substance of the idea of the Trinity, as faithfully worded as is compatible with the necessary inadequacy of words to the expression of ideas, that is, spiritual truths that can only be spiritually discerned
4
.
18th August, 1826.
Chap. XXVIII. p. 347.
God's word a Lord of all Lords.
Luther every where identifies the living Word of God with the written word, and rages against Bullinger, who contended that the latter is the word of God only as far as and for whom it is the vehicle of the former. To this Luther replies: "My voice, the vehicle of my words, does not cease to be my voice, because it is ignorantly or maliciously misunderstood." Yea! (might Bullinger have rejoined) the instance were applicable and the argument valid, if we were previously assured that all and every part of the Old and New Testament is the voice of the divine Word. But, except by the Spirit, whence are we to ascertain this? Not from the books themselves; for not one of them makes the pretension for itself, and the two or three texts, which seem to assert it, refer only to the Law and the Prophets, and no where enumerate the books that were given by inspiration: and how obscure the history of the formation of the Canon, and how great the difference of opinion respecting its different parts, what scholar is ignorant?
Chap. XXIX. p. 349.
Patres, quamquam sæpe errant, tamen venerandi propter testimonium fidei.
Although I learn from all this chapter, that Luther was no great Patrician, (indeed he was better employed), yet I am nearly, if not wholly of his mind respecting the works of the Fathers. Those which appear to me of any great value are valuable chiefly for those articles of Christian Faith which are, as it were,
ante Christum
JESUM, namely, the Trinity, and the primal Incarnation spoken of by John i, 10. But in the main I should perhaps go even farther than Luther; for I cannot conceive any thing more likely than that a young man of strong and active intellect, who has no fears, or suffers no fears of worldly prudence to cry, Halt! to him in his career of consequential logic, and who has been
innutritus et juratus
in the Grotio-Paleyan scheme of Christian evidence, and who has been taught by the men and books, which he has been bred up to regard as authority, to consider all inward experiences as fanatical delusions;—I say, I can scarcely conceive such a young man to make a serious study of the Fathers of the first four or five centuries without becoming either a Romanist or a Deist. Let him only read Petavius and the different Patristic and Ecclesiastico-historical tracts of Semler, and have no better philosophy than that of Locke, no better theology than that of Arminius and Bishop Jeremy Taylor, and I should tremble for his belief. Yet why tremble for a belief which is the very antipode of faith? Better for such a man to precipitate himself on to the utmost goal: for then perhaps he may in the repose of intellectual activity feel the nothingness of his prize, or the wretchedness of it; and then perhaps the inward yearning after a religion may make him ask;—"Have I not mistaken the road at the outset? Am I sure that the Reformers, Luther and the rest collectively, were fanatics?"
Ib.p. 351.
Take no care what ye shall eat. As though that commandment did not hinder the carping and caring for the daily bread.
For 'caring,' read, 'anxiety!'
Sit tibi curæ, non autem solicitudini, panis quotidianus
.
Ib.
Even so it was with Ambrose: he wrote indeed well and purely, was more serious in writing than Austin, who was amiable and mild. * * * Fulgentius is the best poet, and far above Horace both with sentences, fair speeches and good actions; he is well worthy to be ranked and numbered with and among the poets.
Der Teufel
! Surely the epithets should be reversed. Austin's mildness—the
durus pater infantum
! And the
super
-Horatian effulgence of Master Foolgentius! O Swan! thy critical cygnets are but goslings.
N.B. I have, however, since I wrote the above, heard Mr. J. Hookham Frere speak highly of Fulgentius.
Ib.p. 352.
For the Fathers were but men, and to speak the truth, their reputes and authorities did undervalue and suppress the books and writings of the sacred Apostles of Christ.
We doubtless find in the writings of the Fathers of the second century, and still more strongly in those of the third, passages concerning the Scriptures that seem to say the same as we Protestants now do. But then we find the very same phrases used of writings not Apostolic, or with no other difference than what the greater name of the authors would naturally produce; just as a Platonist would speak of Speusippus's books, were they extant, compared with those of later teachers of Platonism;—'He was Plato's nephew-had seen Plato—was his appointed successor, &c.' But in inspiration the early Christians, as far as I can judge, made no generic difference, let Lardner say what he will. Can he disprove that it was declared heretical by the Church in the second century to believe the written words of a dead Apostle in opposition to the words of a living Bishop, seeing that the same spirit which guided the Apostles dwells in and guides the Bishops of the Church? This at least is certain, that the later the age of the writer, the stronger the expression of comparative superiority of the Scriptures; the earlier, on the other hand, the more we hear of the
Symbolum
, the
Regula Fidei
, the Creed.
Chap. XXXII. p. 362.
The history of the Prophet Jonas is so great that it is almost incredible; yea, it soundeth more strange than any of the poets' fables, and (said Luther) if it stood not in the Bible, I should take it for a lie.
It is quite wonderful that Luther, who could see so plainly that the book of Judith was an allegoric poem, should have been blind to the book of Jonas being an apologue, in which Jonah means the Israelitish nation.
Ib.p. 364.
For they entered into the garden about the hour at noon day, and having appetites to eat, she took delight in the apple; then about two of the clock, according to our account, was the fall.
Milton has adopted this notion in the Paradise Lost—not improbably from this book.
Ib.p. 365.
David made a Psalm of two and twenty parts, in each of which are eight verses, and yet in all is but one kind of meaning, namely, he will only say, Thy law or word is good.
I have conjectured that the 119th Psalm might have been a form of ordination, in which a series of candidates made their prayers and profession in the open Temple before they went to the several synagogues in the country.
Ib.
But (said Luther) I say, he did well and right thereon: for the office of a magistrate is to punish the guilty and wicked malefactors. He made a vow, indeed, not to punish him, but that is to be understood, so long as David lived.
O Luther! Luther! ask your own heart if this is not Jesuit morality.
Chap. XXXIII. v. 367.
I believe (said Luther) the words of our Christian belief were in such sort ordained by the Apostles, who were together, and made this sweetSymbolumso briefly and comfortable.
It is difficult not to regret that Luther had so superficial a knowledge of Ecclesiastical antiquities: for example, his belief in this fable of the Creed having been a
picnic
contribution of the twelve Apostles, each giving a sentence. Whereas nothing is more certain than that it was the gradual product of three or four centuries.
Chap. XXXIV. p. 369.
An angel (said Luther) is a spiritual creature created by God without a body for the service of Christendom, especially in the office of the Church.
What did Luther mean by a body? For to me the word seemeth capable of two senses, universal and special:—first, a form indicating to A. B. C. &c., the existence and finiteness of some one other being
demonstrative
as
hic
, and
disjunctive
as
hic et non ille
; and in this sense God alone can be without body: secondly, that which is not merely
hic distinctive
, but
divisive
; yea, a product divisible from the producent as a snake from its skin, a precipitate and death of living power; and in this sense the body is proper to mortality, and to be denied of spirits made perfect as well as of the spirits that never fell from perfection, and perhaps of those who fell below mortality, namely, the devils.
But I am inclined to hold that the Devil has no one body, nay, no body of his own; but ceaselessly usurps or counterfeits bodies; for he is an everlasting liar, yea, the lie which is the colored shadow of the substance that intercepts the truth.
Ib.p. 370.
The devils are in woods, in waters, in wildernesses, and in dark pooly places, ready to hurt and prejudice people, &c."The angel's like a flea,The devil is a bore;—"No matter for that! quoth S.T.C.I love him the better therefore.
Yes! heroic Swan, I love thee even when thou gabbiest like a goose; for thy geese helped to save the Capitol.
Ib.p. 371.
I do verily believe (said Luther) that the day of judgment draweth near, and that the angels prepare themselves for the fight and combat, and that within the space of a few hundred years they will strike down both Turk and Pope into the bottomless pit of hell.
Yea! two or three more such angels as thyself, Martin Luther, and thy prediction would be, or perhaps would now have been, accomplished.
Chap. XXXV. p. 388.
Cogitations of the understanding do produce no melancholy, but the cogitations of the will cause sadness; as, when one is grieved at a thing, or when one doth sigh and complain, there are melancholy and sad cogitations, but the understanding is not melancholy.
Even in Luther's lowest imbecilities what gleams of vigorous good sense! Had he understood the nature and symptoms of indigestion together with the detail of subjective seeing and hearing, and the existence of mid-states of the brain between sleeping and waking, Luther would have been a greater philosopher; but would he have been so great a hero? I doubt it. Praised be God whose mercy is over all his works; who bringeth good out of evil, and manifesteth his wisdom even in the follies of his servants, his strength in their weakness!
Ib.p. 389.
Whoso prayeth a Psalm shall be made thoroughly warm.
Expertus credo
.
19th Aug. 1826.
I have learnt to interpret for myself the imprecating verses of the Psalms of my inward and spiritual enemies, the old Adam and all his corrupt menials; and thus I am no longer, as I used to be, stopped or scandalized by such passages as vindictive and anti-Christian.
Ib.
The Devil (said Luther) oftentimes objected and argued against me the whole cause which, through God's grace, I lead. He objecteth also against Christ. But better it were that the Temple brake in pieces than that Christ should therein remain obscure and hid.
Sublime!
Ib.
In Job are two chapters concerningBehemoththe whale, that by reason of him no man is in safety. * * These are colored words and figures whereby the Devil is signified and showed.
A slight mistake of brother Martin's. The
Behemoth
of Job is beyond a doubt neither whale nor devil, but, I think, the hippopotamus; who is indeed as ugly as the devil, and will occasionally play the devil among the rice-grounds; but though in this respect a devil of a fellow, yet on the whole he is too honest a monster to be a fellow of devils.
Vindiciæ Behemoticæ
.
Chap. XXXVI. p. 390.
Of Witchcraft.
It often presses on my mind as a weighty argument in proof of at least a negative inspiration, an especial restraining grace, in the composition of the Canonical books, that though the writers individually did (the greater number at least) most probably believe in the objective reality of witchcraft, yet no such direct assertions as these of Luther's, which would with the vast majority of Christians have raised it into an article of faith, are to be found in either Testament.