27 Luther the Destroyer of Liberty of Conscience.

24. Luther the Destroyer of Liberty of Conscience.

Catholics claim that Luther’s work, though ostensibly undertaken in behalf of religious liberty, necessarily had to result in the very opposite of freedom. They point to the fact that in most countries which accepted the Protestant faith the Church became subservient to the State. These state churches of Europe, however, which in the view of Catholics are the product of Luther’s reform movement, are to be regarded as only one symptom of the intolerance which characterizes the entire activity of Luther. He had indeed adopted the principle of "private interpretation" of the Scriptures, however, only for himself. He was unwilling to accord to others the right which he claimed for himself. All who dissented from his teaching were promptly attacked by him, and that, in violent and scurrilous language. The Protestant party in the course of time became a warring camp of Ishmaelites, Luther fighting everybody and everybody fighting Luther. Religious intolerance and persecution became the prevailing policy of Protestants in their dealings with other Protestants. The burning of Servetus at Geneva by

Calvin was the logical outcome of Luther’s teaching. The maxim, _Cuius regio, eius religio,_ that is, The prince, or government, in whose territory I reside determines my religion, became a Protestant tenet. America got its first taste of religious liberty, not from the original Protestant settlers, but from the Catholic colonists whom Lord Baltimore brought to Maryland, etc., etc. The view here propounded is in plain contravention of what the world has hitherto believed, and to a very large extent still believes, regarding Luther’s attitude toward the right of the individual to choose his own religion and to determine for himself matters of faith. The position which Luther occupies in his final answer before the Emperor at Worms is generally believed to state Luther’s position on the question of religious liberty in a nutshell. "Unless convinced by the Word of God or by cogent reason" that he was wrong, he declared at the Diet of Worms, he could not and would not retract what he had written. The individual conscience, he maintained, cannot be bound. Each man must determine the meaning of the Word for himself. And the inevitable result of this principle is individual liberty. This principle Luther maintained to the end of his life. His appeal to the magistrates to suppress the Peasants’ Revolt was not a call to suppress the false teachings of the peasants, but their disorderly conduct. Against their spiritual aberrations Luther proposed to wage war with his written and oral testimony. "The peace and order of the State must be maintained against disorder, personal violence, destruction of property, public immorality, and treason, though they come in the guise of religion. The State must grant liberty of conscience, freedom of speech, and the privilege of the press. These are inalienable rights belonging alike to every individual, subject only to the limitation that they are not permitted to encroach upon the rights of others. The natural, the almost inevitable, consequence of the declaration and recognition of these principles was eventually the establishment of modern constitutional law. It was not in consequence of his teaching, but merely in spite of it, that for the next two centuries (in certain instances) monarchical government became more autocratic, as feudalism was being transformed into civil government. . . . All through Luther’s writings, and in his own acts as well, is to be read the right of the individual to think and believe in matters political, religious, and otherwise as he sees proper. His is the right to read the Bible, and any other book he may desire. He has the right to confer and counsel, with others, to express and declare his views _pro_ and _con,_ in speech and print, so long as he abides by, and remains within, the laws of the land. Luther firmly believed in the liberty of the individual as to conscience, speech, and press. The search for truth must be untrammeled." (Waring, _Political Theories of Luther,_ p. 235 f.) This testimony of one who has made a careful investigation of Luther’s writings on the subject of liberty of conscience is, of course, not first-hand evidence; it merely shows what impressions people take away from their study of Luther. Let us hear Luther himself. In the _Appeal to the German Nobility_ he says: "No one can deny that it is breaking God’s commandments to violate faith and a safe-conduct, even though it be promised to the devil himself, much more then in the case of a heretic. . . . Even though John Hus were a heretic, however bad he may have been, yet he was burned unjustly and in violation of God’s commandments, and we must not force the Bohemians to approve this, if we wish ever to be at one with them. Plain truth must unite us, not obstinacy. It is no use to say, as they said at the time, that a safe-conduct need not be kept if promised to a heretic; that is as much as to say, one may break God’s commandments in order to keep God’s commandments. They were infatuated and blinded by the devil, that they could not see what they said or did. God has commanded us to observe a safe-conduct; and this we must do though the world should perish; much more, then, where it is only a question of a heretic being set free. We should overcome heretics with books, not with fire, as the old Fathers did. If there were any skill in overcoming heretics with fire, the executioner would be the most learned doctor in the world; and there would be no need of study, but he that could get another into his power could burn him." (10, 332.) In his treatise _On the Limits of Secular Authority,_ Luther says: "Unbearable loss follows where the secular authority is given too much room, and it is likewise not without loss where it is too restricted. Here it punishes too little; there it punishes too much. Although it is more desirable that it offend on the side of punishing too little than that it punish too severely; because it is always better to permit a knave to live than to put a good man to death, inasmuch as the world still has and must have knaves, but has few good men.

"In the first place, it is to be noted that the two classes of the human race, one of whom is in the kingdom of God under Christ, and the other in the kingdom of the world under civil authority, have two kinds of laws; for every kingdom must have its laws and its rights, and no kingdom or _regime_ can stand without law, as daily experience shows. Temporal government has laws that do not reach farther than over person and property, and what is external on the earth; for God will not permit any one to rule over the soul of man but Himself. Therefore, where temporal power presumes to give laws to the soul, it touches God’s rule, and misleads and destroys the souls. We wish to make that so clear that men may comprehend it, in order that our knights, the princes and bishops, may see what fools they are when seeking to force people by their laws and commandments to believe thus or so. When a man lays a human law or commandment upon the soul, that it must believe this or that, as the man prescribes, it is assuredly not God’s Word. . . . Therefore it is a thoroughly foolish thing to command a man to believe the Church, the Fathers, the councils, although there is nothing on it from God’s Word.

"Now tell me, how much sense does the head have that lays down a command on a matter where it has no authority? Who would not hold as of unsound mind the person who would command the moon to shine when it wishes? How fitting would it be if the Leipzig authorities would lay down laws for us at Wittenberg, or we at Wittenberg for the people of Leipzig? Moreover, let men thereby understand that every authority should and may concern itself only where it can see, know, judge, sentence, transform, and change; for what kind of judge is he to me who would blindly judge matters he neither hears nor sees? Now tell me, how can a man see, know, judge, sentence, and change the heart? For that is reserved to God alone. A court should and must be certain when it sentences, and have everything in clear light. But the soul’s thoughts and impulses can be known to no one but God. Therefore it is futile and impossible to command or compel a man by force to believe thus or so. For that purpose another grip is necessary. Force does not accomplish it. For my ungracious lords, Pope and bishops, should be bishops and preach God’s Word; but they leave that and have become temporal princes and rule with laws that concern only person and property. They have reversed the order of things. Instead of ruling souls (internally) through God’s Word, they rule (externally) castles, cities, lands, and people, and kill souls with indescribable murder. The temporal lords should, in like manner, rule (externally) land and people; but they leave that. They can do nothing more than flay and shave the people, set one tax and one rent on another; there let loose a bear and here a wolf; respect no right, or faith, or truth, and conduct affairs so that robbers and knaves increase in number; and their temporal _regime_ lies as far beneath as the _regime_ of the spiritual tyrants. Faith is a matter concerning which each one is responsible for himself; for as little as one man can go to heaven or hell for me, so little can he believe or not believe for me; and as little as he can open or close heaven or hell for me, so little can he drive me to belief or unbelief. We have the saying from St. Augustine: ’No one can or should be compelled to believe.’ The blind and miserable people do not see what a vain and impossible thing they undertake; for, however imperiously they command, and however hard they drive, they cannot force people any farther than they follow with their mouth and the hand. They cannot compel the heart, though they should break it. For true is the maxim: _Gedanken sind zollfrei_. (No toll is levied on thought.) When weak consciences are driven by force to lie, deceive, and say otherwise than they believe in the heart, they burden themselves also with a heavy sin; for all the lies and false witness given by such weak consciences rest upon him who forces them.

"Christ Himself clearly recognized and concisely stated this truth when He said: ’Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s’ (Matthew 22:1-46;Matthew 21:1-46). Now, when imperial authority stretches itself over into God’s kingdom and authority and does not keep within its own separate jurisdiction, this discrimination between the two realms has not been made. For the soul is not under authority of the emperor. He can neither teach nor guide it, neither kill it nor give it life, neither bind nor loose, neither judge nor sentence, neither hold nor let alone; which necessarily would exist had he authority so to do, for they are under his jurisdiction and power.

"David long ago expressed it briefly: ’The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s; but the earth hath He given to the children of men’ (Psalms 115:1-18;Psalms 16:1-11). That is to say, over what is on the earth and belongs to the temporal earthly kingdom, man has power from God; but what belongs to heaven and to the eternal kingdom is under the Lord of heaven alone. But finally, this is the meaning of Peter: ’We ought to obey God rather than men’ (Acts 5:29). He here clearly marks a limit to temporal authority; for were men obliged to observe everything that civil authority wished, the command, ’We ought to obey God rather than men,’ would have been given in vain.

"If, now, your princes or temporal lord command you to believe this or that, or to dispense with certain books, say: ’I am under obligations to obey you with body and estate; command me within the compass of your authority on earth, and I will obey you. Put if you command me as to belief, and order me to put away books, I will not obey, for then you become a tyrant and overreach yourself, and command where you have neither right nor power.’ If your goods are taken and your disobedience is punished, you are blessed, and you may thank God that you are worthy to suffer for God’s Word. When a prince is in the wrong, his subjects are not under obligations to follow him, for no one is obliged to do anything against the right; but we must obey God, who desires to have the right rather than men.

"But thou sayest once more: ’Yea, worldly power cannot compel to belief. It is only external protection against the people being misled by false doctrine. How else can heretics be kept it bay?’ Answer: That is the business of bishops, to whom the office is entrusted, and not to princes. For heresy can never be kept off by force; another grip is wanted for that. This is another quarrel and conflict than that of the sword. God’s Word must contend here. If that avail nothing, temporal power will never settle the matter, though it fill the world with blood.

Heresy pertains to the spiritual world. You cannot cut it with iron, nor burn it with fire, nor drown it in water. You cannot drive the devil out of the heart by destroying, with sword or fire, the vessel in which he lives. This is like fighting a blade of straw." (10, 395 ff.)

Referring to the Anabaptists, Luther wrote in 1528: "It is not right, and I think it a great pity, that such wretched people should be so miserably slain, burned, cruelly put to death; every one should be allowed to believe what he will. If he believe wrongly, he will have punishment enough in the eternal fire of hell. Why should he be tortured in this life, too; provided always that it be a case of mistaken belief only, and that they are not also unruly and oppose themselves to the temporal power?" (17, 2188.) To his friend Cresser he wrote: "If the courts wish to govern the churches in their own interests, God will withdraw His benediction from them, and things will become worse than before. Satan still is Satan. Under the Popes he made the Church meddle in politics; in our time he wishes to make politics meddle with the Church." (21b, 2911. Translations by Waring.) But why did not these excellent principles attain better results in Luther’s own time? On this question we have no better answer than that given by Bryce: "The remark must not be omitted in passing how much less than might have been expected the religious movement did at first actually effect in the way of promoting either political progress or freedom of conscience. The habits of centuries were not to be unlearned in a few years, and it was natural that ideas struggling into existence and activity should work erringly and imperfectly for a time." (_Holy

Roman Empire_, p. 381.) This would be Luther’s own answer. His work was among people who were just emerging from the ignorance and spiritual bondage in which they had been reared in the Catholic Church. They had to be gradually and with much patience taught, not only in regard to their rights and privileges, but also in regard to their proper and most efficient application. But it is not in agreement with the facts when the charge is directed against Luther that he employed the authority of the State for furthering the ends of the Church because he urged the Saxon Elector to arrange for a visitation of the demoralized churches in the country, and to order such improvements to be made as would be found necessary (Erlangen Ed. 55, 223); also when he sought the Elector’s aid for the reform party at Naumburg at the election of a new bishop (17, 113). In both instances he speaks of the Elector as a "Notbischof," that is, an emergency bishop. But his remarks must be carefully studied to get his exact meaning. For he declares that the Elector as a magistrate is under no obligation to attend to these matters. They are not state business. But he is asked as a Christian to place himself at the head of a laudable and necessary movement, and to place his influence and ability at the disposition of the Master, just as a Christian laborer, craftsman, merchant, musician, painter, poet, author, consecrate their abilities to the Lord. This means that the "emergency bishop" has not the right to issue commands in the Church, but he has the privilege and duty to serve. The people needed a leader, and who was better qualified for that than their trusted prince? Besides, the churches had to be protected in their secular and civil interests in those days. The young Protestant faith would have been mercilessly extirpated by Rome, which was gathering the secular powers around her to fight her battles with material weapons against Protestants. The Protestant princes would have betrayed a trust which citizens rightly repose in their government, if they had not taken steps to afford the Protestant churches in their domains every legal protection. The protection of citizens in the exercise of their religious liberty is within the sphere of the civil magistrates. The citizens can appeal to the government for such protection, and when the government in the interest of religious liberty represses elements that are hostile, it is not intolerant, but just. If a religion, like that of the bomb-throwing anarchists and the vice-breeding Mormons, is forbidden to practise its faith in the land, that is not intolerance, but common equity.

One of the most pathetic spectacles which the student of medieval history has to contemplate is the treatment of the Jews at the hands of the Christians. "Few were the monarchs of Christendom," says Prof. Worman, "who rose above the barbarism of the Middle Ages. By considerable pecuniary sacrifices only could the sons of Israel enjoy tolerance. In Italy their lot had always been most severe. Now and then a Roman pontiff would afford them his protection, but, as a rule, they have received only intolerance in that country. Down even to the time of the deposition of Pius IX from the temporal power (1810) it has been the barbarous custom, on the last Saturday before the Carnival, to compel the Jews to proceed _en masse_ to the capitol, and ask permission of the pontiff to reside in the city another year. At the foot of the hill the petition was refused them, but, after much entreaty, they were granted the favor when they had reached the summit, and as their residence the Ghetto was assigned them." In France a prelate condemned the Jews because the "country people looked upon them as the only people of God," whereupon "all joined in a carnival of persecution, and the history of the Jews became nothing else than a successive series of massacres." In Spain the Jews were treated more kindly by the Moors than by the Catholics. At first their services were valued in the crafts and trades, "but the extravagance and consequent poverty of the nobles, as well as the increasing power of the priesthood, ultimately brought about a disastrous change. The estates of the nobles and, it is also believed, those attached to the cathedrals and churches, were in many cases mortgaged to the Jews; hence it was not difficult for ’conscience’ to get up a persecution when goaded to its ’duty’ by the pressure of want and shame. Gradually the Jews were deprived of the privilege of living where they pleased; their rights were diminished and their taxes augmented." To their lowest stage of misery, however, the Jews were reduced during one of the most holy enterprises which the papacy launched during the Middle Ages--the Crusades. "The crusading movement was inaugurated by a wholesale massacre and persecution first of the Jew, and afterwards of the Mussulman. . . . Shut out from all opportunity for the development of their better qualities, the Jews were gradually reduced to a decline both in character and condition. From a learned, influential, and powerful class of the community, we find them, after the inauguration of the Crusades, sinking into miserable outcasts; the common prey of clergy and nobles and burghers, and existing in a state worse than slavery itself. The Christians deprived the Jews even of the right of holding real estate; and confined them to the narrower channels of traffic. Their ambition being thus fixed upon one subject, they soon mastered all the degrading arts of accumulating gain; and prohibited from investing their gain in the purchase of land, they found n more profitable employment of it in lending it at usurious interest to the thoughtless and extravagant." In course of time the borrowers recouped their losses by inaugurating raids upon the Jews. Jew-baiting, persecutions, expatriations of Jewish settlers, were of frequent occurrence. Towards the end of the thirteenth century 16,000 Jews were expelled from England and their property confiscated. In Germany "they had to pay all manner of iniquitous taxes--body tax, capitation tax, trade taxes, coronation tax, and to present a multitude of gifts, to mollify the avarice or supply the necessities of emperor, princes, and barons. It did not suffice, however, to save them from the loss of their property. The populace and the lower clergy also must be, satisfied; they, too, had passions to gratify. A wholesale slaughter of the ’enemies of Christianity’ was inaugurated. Treves, Metz, Cologne, Mentz, Worms, Spires, Strassburg, and other cities were deluged with the blood of the ’unbelievers.’ The word _Hep_ (said to be the initials of _Hierosolyma est perdita_, Jerusalem is taken) throughout all the cities of the empire became the signal for massacres, and if an insensate monk sounded it along the streets, it threw the rabble into paroxysms of murderous rage. The choice of death or conversion was given to the Jews; but few were found willing to purchase their life by that form of perjury. Rather than subject their offspring to conversion and such Christian training, fathers presented their breast to the sword after putting their children to death, and wives and virgins sought refuge from the brutality of the soldiers by throwing themselves into the river with stones fastened to their bodies." (_McClintock and Strong Cyclop_., 4, 908 f.)

All this happened under the most Christian rule of the Popes. The characteristic temper of the Jew in the Middle Ages, his fierce hatred of Christianity, his sullen mood, his blasphemous treatment of matters and objects sacred to Christians, are the result of the treatment he received even from the members and high officials of the Church. Now here comes Rome in our day asserting the kindness and generosity shown the Jews by their Popes, because these afforded them shelter in the Ghetto of the Holy City! How differently, they say, was this from the treatment accorded the Jews by Luther. Why, these Catholic writers do not tell the hundredth part of the truth about the attitude of their Church to the Jews in the Middle Ages.

Let this be remembered when Luther’s remarks about the Jews are taken up for study. He is very outspoken against them; his utterances, however, relate for the most part to the false teaching and religious practises, to their perversion of the text and the meaning of the Scriptures, and to the blasphemies which they utter against God, Jesus Christ, and His

Church, and to the lies which they assiduously spread about the Christian religion. In all that Luther says against the Jews under this head he is simply discharging the functions of a teacher of Christianity; for Scripture says that it was given also "for reproof" (2 Timothy 3:16). No one can be a true theologian without being polemical on occasion. In another class of his references to the Jews Luther refers to their character: their arrogance and pride, their stiffneckedness and contumacy, their greed and avarice, which makes their presence in any land a public calamity. Though their church and state has long been overthrown, and they are a people without a country, homeless wanderers on the face of the earth, they still boast of being "the people of God," and are indulging the wildest dreams about the reestablishment of their ancient kingdom. They are looking for a Messiah who will be a secular prince, and will make them all barons living in beautiful castles and receiving the tribute of the Goyim. One may reason and plead with them and show them that their belief contradicts their own Scriptures, that their Talmud is filled with palpable falsehoods, and that their hope is a chimera; but they turn a deaf ear to argument and entreaty, and turn upon you with fierce resentment at your efforts to show them the truth. Although they know that their habits of grasping and hoarding wealth, driving hard and unfair bargains, their hunting for small profits by contemptible methods like hungry dogs searching the offal in the alley, rouses the enmity of communities against them and causes them to become a blight to all true progress, to honest trade and business in any land where they have become firmly established, so that laws must be made against them, still they blindly and passionately continue their covetous strivings. When Luther observes the corrupting influence of the Jews on the public life and morals, he declares that they ought to be expelled from the country, and their synagogs ought to be destroyed, that is, they have deserved this treatment. But it is a remarkable fact that even in these terrible denunciations of the Jews Luther moves on Bible ground, as any one can see that will examine his exposition of an imprecatory psalm, likePsalms 109:1-31;Psalms 59:1-17. If these words of God mean anything and admit of any application to an apostate and hardened race, the Jews are that race, and a teacher of the Bible has the duty to point out this fact. But Luther has not been a Jewbaiter; he has not incited a riot against then, nor headed a raid upon them, as Prof. Worman tells us that Catholic priests in the Middle Ages occasionally would do. What Luther thought of persecuting the Jews for their religion can be seen from his exposition ofPsalms 14:1-7. He did not believe in a general conversion of the Jews, but he held that individual Jews would ever and anon be won for Christ and would be grafted on the olive-tree of the true Church. "Therefore," he says, "we ought to condemn the rage of some Christians--if they really deserve to be called Christians--who think that they are doing God a service by persecuting the Jews in the most hateful manner, imagining all manner of evil about them, proudly and haughtily mocking them in their pitiful misery. According to the statement in this Psalm (Psalms 14:1-7;Psalms 7:1-17) and the example of the Apostle Paul inRomans 9:1-33;Romans 1:1-32, we ought rather to feel a profound and cordial pity for them and always pray for them. . . . By their tyrannical bearing these wicked people, who are nominally Christians, cause not a little injury, not only to the cause of Christianity, but also to Christian people, and they are responsible for, and sharers in, the impiety of the Jews, because by their cruel bearing toward them they drive them away from the Christian faith instead of attracting them with all possible gentleness, patience, pleading, and anxious concern for them. There are even some theologians so unreasonable as to sanction such cruelty to the Jews and to encourage people to it; in their proud conceit they assert that the Jews are the

Christians’ slaves and tributary to the emperor, while in truth they are themselves Christians with as much right as any one nowadays is Roman Emperor. Good God, who would want to join our religion, even though he were of a meek and submissive mind, when he sees how spitefully and cruelly he is treated; and that the treatment he can expect is not only unchristian, but worse than bestial? If hating Jews and heretics and Turks makes people Christians, we insane people would indeed be the best Christians. But if loving Christ makes Christians, we are beyond a doubt worse than Jews, heretics, and Turks, because no one loves Christ less than we. The rage of these people reminds me of children and fools, who, when they see a picture of a Jew on a wall, go and cut out his eyes, pretending that they want to help the Lord Christ. Most of the preachers during Lent treat of nothing else than the cruelty of the Jews towards the Lord Christ, which they are continually magnifying. Thus they embitter believers against them, while the Gospel aims only at showing and exalting the love of God and Christ." (4, 927.) The Catholic claim that the Maryland Colony in the days of the Calverts became the first home of true religious liberty on American soil has been so often blasted by historians that one is loath to enter upon this moth-eaten claim for fear of merely repeating what others have more exhaustively stated. Catholics seem to forget what Bishop Perry has called attention to: "The Maryland charter of toleration was the gift of an English monarch, the nominal head of Church of England, and the credit of any merit in this donative is due the giver, and not the recipient, of the kingly grant." Prof. Fisher has called attention to another fact: "Only two references to religion are to be found in the Maryland charter. The first gives to the proprietary patronage and advowson of churches. The second empowers him to erect churches, chapels, and oratories, which he may cause to be consecrated according to the ecclesiastical laws of England. The phraseology is copied from the Avalon patent (drawn up in England in 1623 for a portion of the colony of Newfoundland) that was given to Sir George Calvert (first Lord Baltimore) when he was a member of the Church of England. Yet the terms were such that recognition of that Church as the established form of religion does not prevent the proprietary and the colony from the exercise of full toleration toward other Christian bodies." (_Colonial Era_, p. 64.) The Maryland Colony was admittedly organized as a business venture, and its original members were largely Protestants. It was to secure the financial interests of the proprietary that tolerance was shown the colonists. Prof. Fisher says: "Any attempt to proscribe Protestants would have proved speedily fatal to the existence of the colony. In a document which emanated partly from Baltimore himself, it is declared to be evident that the distinctive privileges ’usually granted to ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic Church by Catholic princes in their own countries could not be possibly granted hero (in Maryland) without great offense to the King and State of England.’" (p. 63.) We have not the space in this review of Catholic charges and claims to go into the religious history of the Maryland Colony as we should like to do; otherwise we should explain the machinations of the Jesuits in this colony, and prove that what tolerance Maryland in its early days enjoyed it owed to the preponderating influence of non-Catholic forces.

It requires an unusual amount of courage for a Catholic writer at this late day to parade his Church as the mother and protectress of religious liberty and tolerance. Any person who has but a smattering knowledge of the history of the world during the last four centuries will smile at this claim. The old Rome of the days of the Inquisition and the _auto da fes_ may seem tolerant in our days, but she is so from sheer necessity, not from any voluntary and joyous choice of her own. Her intolerant principles remain the same, only she has not the power to carry them into effect.

One of the Catholic bishops who was opposed to the dogma of papal infallibility, Reinkens, published a book bearing the remarkable title _Revolution and Church_. In this book a thought is suggested which connects the Roman Curia with political disturbances that occur in the world. The author regards the declaration of papal infallibility as another step forward in the imperialistic program of the Curia looking towards world-dominion. He argues that it is in the interest of the Vatican policies to foment trouble and breed revolutions in the commonwealths of the world. "The thoughts of the Roman Curia," he says, "are not the thoughts of God. Inasmuch, however, as it is these latter that are realized with increasing force in the history of the world, and that animate the formation of every true civil and ecclesiastical institution, the Curia is gradually forced into a conflict with the whole world. . . . The Curia (to carry its aims into effect) tries one last means: its last attempt is to bring about a revolution. As ’the Church’ succeeded in digging her charter out of the ruins of the commonwealths of the ancient world, so the spirits of Vaticanism hope again to rebuild the palace of their dominion out of ruins." (p. 4.)

Again: "Bishop Hefele entertains the fear that the recent elevation of the Pope to power (the infallibility dogma) will soon become the primary dogma in the instruction of children. We regret to say that this fear has proven well founded: all the governments, even the German, aid in this instruction of the schoolchildren, because they retain religious instruction on a confessional basis [we in America say on "sectarian" lines], hence also that prescribed by the Vatican, as obligatory, and the infallibilist clergy is salaried by the State for providing this instruction The divine authority of the Pope extending over all men tends to disturb the minds of the children in the schools: they are taught at an early age to obey the Viceregent of God in preference to obeying the Emperor and the State. In the higher schools this is done by the clergy that is commissioned to teach in such schools." (p. 7.) Again: "The Roman order of the Jesuits is not only spread like a net over all countries, but it sinks its roots into every age, sex, estate, and loosens and forces apart the ligaments of civil institutions." (p. 8.)

Luther’s views on human free will are brought forward once more to show that his teaching necessarily is hostile to liberty. Luther’s famous reply to Erasmus _On the Bondage of the Will_ is made to do yeoman’s service in this respect. What Luther has declared regarding the sovereignty of God’s rulership over men, regarding the relation of God also to the evil existing in this world, regarding the absence of chance in the affairs of men, regarding man’s utter helplessness over and against the supreme will of God, is cited to prove that Luther’s teaching leads, not to liberty, but either to recklessness or despair. Luther’s views on "the captive, or enslaved, will" are declared to be the most degrading and demoralizing teaching that men have been offered during the last centuries. Luther’s famous illustration, _viz_., that man is like a horse which either God or the devil rides, has prompted the following remarks of one of Luther’s most recent critics: "This parable summarizes the whole of Luther’s teaching on the vital and all-important subject of man’s free will. . . . All who are honest and fearless of consequences must admit in frankest terms that Luther’s teaching on free will, as expounded in his book, and explicitly making God the author of man’s evil thoughts and deeds, cannot but lend a mighty force to the passions and justify the grossest violations of the moral law. Indeed, the enemy of souls, as Anderson remarks, ’could not inspire a doctrine more likely to effect his wicked designs than Luther’s teaching oil the enslavement of the human will.’" There is a dogmatic reason for this excoriation of Luther: Rome’s teaching of righteousness by works and human merit. The same author says, in immediate connection with the foregoing: "Likening man to a ’beast of burden,’ does Luther not maintain that man is utterly powerless ’by reason of his fallen nature’ to lead a godly life, and merit by the practise of virtue the rewards of eternal happiness? Does he not say: ’It is written in the hearts of men that there is no freedom of will,’ that ’all takes place in accordance with inexorable necessity,’ and that, even ’were free will offered him, he should not care to have it’? But does not all this contradict the Spirit of God when, speaking in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, He says: ’Before man is life and death, good and evil; that which he shall choose shall be given him’?"

We submitted in chap. 15 the Scriptural evidence on the spiritual disability of man. (The passage from Ecclesiasticus in the last quotation is not Scripture.) It is useless to argue with a person who refuses to accept this teaching of Scripture. We can only repeat what we said before: Let the advocates of human free will proceed to do what they claim they are able to do, and do it thoroughly. No one will begrudge them the crown of glory when they obtain it. On the other hand, they will have none but themselves to blame if they do not obtain it. In the light of God’s holy Word, in the light, moreover, of the experience of the most spiritual-minded and saintly men that have lived on earth, we see in the claim of the advocates of human free will regarding the fulfilment of God’s Law nothing but a vain boast, and a most mischievous attempt to be smarter than God. The theory of salvation by merit is the most disastrous risk that the human heart can take. Christ has mercifully warned men not to take this risk. If they will not hear Him, they will have to perish in their sins (John 8:24). In chap. 15 we also explained Luther’s views on human free will in the affairs of this life. We only have to add a word on the subject of contingency. Are Luther’s Catholic, critics really so blind as not to see that man even in his ordinary affairs of common every-day life is subject to the inscrutable government of God? Our physical life in its most trivial aspects is entirely dependent not only on the laws of nature, which are nothing but the order which the Creator has appointed for the created universe, but also on extraordinary acts of God over which no man has control. The farmer sows his wheat and expects to reap a crop. How? By reason of the power of germination which the Creator has put in the grain, and the laws which govern atmospheric changes, which laws, again, the Creator governs. The farmer can do nothing to make the wheat grow and ripen. He is utterly dependent upon God.--A merchant decides that he will make a business trip to New York. He will leave the next morning on the nine o’clock train. He orders his transportation, and the next morning-he does not leave. "Something happened; I had to change my plans," he tells his friends. Ah, says our Catholic critic, but was he not free to change his mind? We say: You may talk as much as you wish about the person’s freedom; the fact remains that the person would not have changed his mind unless he had to. - Let us follow this merchant a little further: He actually starts on his trip two days later. He is to arrive at his destination at two o’clock in the afternoon of the next day, and very much depends on his arriving just at that time. But he does not even get to Cincinnati. "Something happened," he wires to his friend. And now his human free will goes into operation again: he changes his mind. - "Man proposes, but God disposes," this belief is ineradicably written into the consciousness of all intelligent men, even of intelligent pagans, and no philosophy of free will will wipe it out. The wise farmer, after he has finished sowing his field, says, "God willing, I shall reap a good crop." The wise merchant says, "God willing, I shall be in New York to-morrow." And God approves of this wise reservation which causes the prudent to submit their most ordinary actions to divine revision. He says inJames 4:13-16: "Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain, whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil." Let Luther’s Catholic critics wrestle with these and similar texts of Scripture, with these and similar facts of daily life. Luther has rightly declared the sovereignty of God a mighty ax and thunderbolt that shatters the assertion of human free will.

We have shown that Luther is no fatalist. His warning, on the one hand, not to disregard the secret will of God, and on the other, not to seek to find it out, is a masterpiece of wisdom. In view of the absolute sovereignty of God and man’s absolute dependence upon it, Luther urges man to go to work in his chosen occupation in childlike reliance upon God. He is to employ to the utmost capacity all his God-given energies of mind and body and work as if everything depended on his industry, strength, prudence, thrift, planning, and arranging. Having done all, he is to say: Dear Lord, it is all subject to Thy approval. Thou art Master; do Thou boss my business. If Thou overrulest my plans, I have nothing to say; Thou knowest better. Not my will, but Thine, be done. This is the whole truth in a nutshell that Luther drives home in that part of his reply to Erasmus which treats of contingency. If ever statements garbled from the context are unfair to the author, what the Catholics are constantly doing in quoting Luther on the Bondage of the Will is one of the most glaring exhibitions of unfairness on record. This treatise of Luther deserves to be studied thoroughly and repeatedly, and measured against the facts of the common experience of all men. For a profitable study of this treatise there is, moreover, required a very humble mind, a mind that knows its sin, and is sincere in acknowledging its insufficiency. The generation of Luther and the generations after him have had this particular teaching of Luther before them four hundred years. What effect has it had on human progress in every field of secular activity in Protestant lands? Has it created that chaos and confusion which Catholics claim it must inevitably lead to? Quite the contrary has happened. And now let the patrons of the theory of human free will measure their own success as recorded by history against that of

Protestants.