Luther. Grisar Hartmann

[132] The wealth of biblical passages quoted in this strange address cannot make up for the lack of clear ideas and of any discrimination and judgment as to the limits to be observed by a preacher in commenting on the faults of his time. Luther’s fondness for the use of filthy and repulsive figures of speech also makes a very disagreeable impression. It is true that there we must take into account the manners of the time, and his Saxon surroundings, but even Julius Köstlin, Luther’s biographer, was shocked at the indecency of the expressions which Luther uses.[133]

      The real reason of this discourse was probably that Luther wished to enter on his office as Rural Vicar by striking a deadly blow at the Observant faction and at their habit of crying down his own party. It was this address which his friend Lang, fully alive to its range, sent at once to Mutian, the frivolous leader of the Humanists at Gotha, describing it as a sermon “Against the little Saints.”

Returning to the Commentary on the Psalms, we find that therein Luther sometimes makes characteristic statements about himself. On one occasion, doubtless in a fit of depression, he pours out the following effusion: “If Ezechiel says the eyes wax feeble, this prophecy is largely fulfilled at the present time, as I perceive in myself and in many others. They know very well all that must be believed, but their faith and assent is so dull that they are oppressed as by sleep, are heavy of heart, and unable to raise themselves up to God.” Such states of lukewarmness were to be banished by means of fear, but woe to him who permits the feeling of self-righteousness to take the place of the weariness, for “there is no greater unrighteousness than excessive righteousness.”[134] In the latter words he seems to be again alluding to the “little Saints” and the ostensibly self-righteous members of his Order.

His ill-humour is partly a result of his dissatisfaction with the disorders which he knew or believed to exist in his immediate surroundings, in the Order, and in ecclesiastical life generally. He frequently speaks of them with indignation, though from the new standpoint which he was gradually taking. “We live in a false peace,” he cries, and fancy we can draw on the “Treasure of the merits of Christ and the Saints.” “Popes and bishops are flinging about graces and indulgences.”[135] Unmindful of the consequences, he diminished the respect of his youthful hearers for the authority of the Church. As to the religious life, he was wont to speak as follows: “Here come men of religion and vaunt their confraternities and indulgences at every street corner only to get money for food and clothing. Oh! those begging friars! those begging friars! those begging friars! Perhaps you are to be excused because you receive alms in God’s name, and preach the word and perform the other services gratis. That may be, but see you look to it.”[136] These words in the mouth of one who was himself a member of a mendicant Order, for this the Augustinian Hermits undoubtedly were, amounted to an attack on the constitution of his own Congregation.

      In his Commentary on the Psalms he frequently at one and the same time rails at the “self-righteous” and “holy by works” and at the opposition party in his Order, so that it is not easy to distinguish against whom his attacks are directed. Already at this period he shows a certain tendency to under-estimate the value of Christian good works and to insist one-sidedly on the power and efficacy of faith and on the application of the merits of Christ.

Most emphatically, as opposed to trust in good works and merits, does he insist on the grace of Christ, the “nuda et sola misericordia Dei et benignitas gratuita” which must be our support and stay.[137] His exhortations against works and human efforts sound as though intended to dissuade from any such, whether inward or outward, as though the merits of Christ and the righteousness which God gives us might thereby suffer.[138] Man’s interior efforts towards repentance by means of the contemplation of the misery and the consequences of sin, do not appeal to him. He is well aware that repentance consists in sorrow for and hatred of sin,[139] but he says that he himself has no personal experience of this kind of compunction.[140] He complains that so many turn to exterior works, they “follow their own inventions and make rules of their own at their choice; their ceremonies and the works they have devised are everything to them”: but to act thus is to set up “a new standard of righteousness instead of cultivating the spiritual things which God prescribes, namely, the Word of God, Grace and Salvation. These persons are in so much the greater error because it is a fine spiritual by-path, they are obstinate and stiff-necked, full of hidden pride in spite of the wonderful humility of which they make a show.” At last, carried away by his anger with what is mostly a phantom of his own creation, he exclaims: “Yes, they are given up to spiritual idolatry, a sin against the Holy Ghost for which there is no forgiveness.”[141]

With such-like harsh accusations of presumptuous zeal for good works he frequently attacks the “capitosi et ostentiosi monachi et sacerdotes.” Let us go for them, he cries, since they are proud of despising others.[142] Obedience and humility they have none, for they are seduced by the angel of darkness, who assumes the garb of an angel of light. They wish to do great works and they set themselves above the small and insignificant things demanded by obedience. These devotees in religious dress (“religiosi devotarii”) should beware of putting their trust in the pious exercises peculiar to them, while they remain lazy, languid, careless, and disobedient in the common life of the Order.[143] The last words “si in iis quæ sunt conventualia et communia” are, in the MS., pointed to by a hand drawn in the margin. The term “conventualia” seems reminiscent of the Conventuals, but not much further on, in the Commentary on the same Psalm (cxviii.), we find the word “observance.” The Psalmist, he says, implicitly condemns “those who are proud of their holiness, and observance, who destroy humility and obedience.”[144] He goes on to advocate something akin to Quietism, saying we should do, not our own works, but God’s works, i.e. “those which God works in us”: everything we do of ourselves belongs only to outward or carnal righteousness.[145] It is quite possible that he did not wish to deny the correct sense these words might convey, for, elsewhere in his controversies, he appears unaware of the exaggeration of his language. But the skirmish with the so-called self-righteous had a deeper explanation. Luther was so fascinated with the righteousness which God gives through faith, that man’s share in securing the same is already relegated too much to the background.

Thus he explains the verse of Psalm cxlii. where the words occur “Give ear to my supplication in Thy truth and hear me in Thy righteousness” as follows: “Hear me by Thy mercy and truth, i.e. through the truth of Thy promises of mercy to the penitent and those who beseech Thee, not for my merits’ sake; hear me in Thy righteousness, not in my righteousness, but in that which Thou givest and wilt give me through faith.”[146] With words of remarkable forcefulness he declares that, to be in sin, only makes more evident the value of the “iustitia” which comes through Christ. “It is therefore fitting that we become unrighteous and sinners”; what he really means to say is, that we should feel ourselves to be such.[147] Elsewhere he dwells, not incorrectly, but with startling emphasis, on the fact that justification comes only from God and without any effort on our part (gratis),[148] and that it is not