Chapter 9

Luther’s first Theses—The Old Adam and Grace—Visitation of the Convents—Luther at Dresden and Erfurth—Tornator—Peace and the Cross—Results of Luther’s Journey—His Labors—The Plague

Luther’s teaching produced its natural fruits. Many of his disciples already felt themselves impelled to profess publicly the truths which their master’s lessons had revealed to them. Among his hearers was a young scholar, Bernard of Feldkirchen, professor of Aristotle’s physics in the university, and who five years later was the first of the evangelical ecclesiastics who entered into the bonds of matrimony.HRSCV1 78.1

It was Luther’s wish that Feldkirchen should maintain, under his presidence, certain theses or propositions in which his principles were laid down. The doctrines professed by Luther thus gained additional publicity. The disputation took place in 1516.HRSCV1 78.2

This was Luther’s first attack upon the dominion of the sophists and upon the papacy, as he himself characterizes it. Weak as it was, it caused him some uneasiness. “I allow these propositions to be printed,” said he many years after, when publishing them in his works, “principally that the greatness of my cause, and the success with which God has crowned it, may not make me vain. For they fully manifest my humiliation, that is to say, the infirmity and ignorance, the fear and trembling with which I began this conflict. I was alone: I had thrown myself imprudently into this business. Unable to retract, I conceded many important points to the pope, and I even adored him.”HRSCV1 78.3

Some of the propositions were as follows:HRSCV1 78.4

“The old Adam is the vanity of vanities; he is the universal vanity; and he renders all other creatures vain, however good they may be.HRSCV1 78.5

“The old Adam is called the flesh, not only because he is led by the lusts of the flesh, but further, because should he be chaste, prudent, and righteous, he is not born again of God by the Holy Ghost.HRSCV1 78.6

“A man who has no part in the grace of God, cannot keep the commandments of God, or prepare himself, either wholly or in part, to receive grace; but he rests of necessity under the power of sin.HRSCV1 78.7

“The will of man without grace is not free, but is enslaved, and that too with its own consent.HRSCV1 78.8

“Jesus Christ, our strength and our righteousness, he who trieth the heart and reins, is the only discerner and judge of our merits.HRSCV1 78.9

“Since all is possible, by Christ, to the believer, it is superstitious to seek for other help, either in man’s will or in the saints.”HRSCV1 78.10

This disputation made a great noise, and it has been considered as the beginning of the Reformation.HRSCV1 78.11

The hour drew nigh in which the Reformation was to burst forth. God hastened to prepare the instrument that he had determined to employ. The elector, having built a new church at Wittenberg, to which he gave the name of All Saints, sent Staupitz into the Low Countries to collect relics for the ornament of the new edifice. The vicar-general commissioned Luther to replace him during his absence, and in particular to make a visitation of the forty monasteries of Misnia and Thuringia.HRSCV1 78.12

Luther repaired first to Grimma, and thence to Dresden. Everywhere he endeavoured to establish the truths that he had discovered, and to enlighten the members of his order.—”Do not bind yourselves to Aristotle or to any other teacher of a deceitful philosophy,” said he to the monks, “but read the Word of God with diligence. Do not look for salvation in your own strength or in your good works, but in the merits of Christ and in God’s grace.”HRSCV1 78.13

An Augustine monk of Dresden had fled from his convent, and was at Mentz, where the prior of the Augustines had received him. Luther wrote to the latter, begging him to send back the stray sheep, and added these words so full of charity and truth: “I know that offences must needs come. It is no marvel that man falls; but it is so that he rises again and stands upright. Peter fell that he might know he was but a man. Even in our days the cedars of Lebanon are seen to fall. The very angels—a thing that exceeds all imagination!—have fallen in heaven, and Adam in paradise. Why then should we be surprised if a reed is shaken by the whirlwind, or if a smoking taper is extinguished?”HRSCV1 78.14

From Dresden Luther proceeded to Erfurth, and reappeared to discharge the functions of vicar-general in that very convent where, eleven years before, he had wound up the clock, opened the gates, and swept out the church. He nominated to the priorship of the convent his friend the bachelor John Lange, a learned and pious but severe man: he exhorted him to affability and patience. “Put on,” wrote he to him shortly after, “put on a spirit of meekness towards the prior of Nuremberg: this is but proper, seeing that he has assumed a spirit of bitterness and harshness. Bitterness is not expelled by bitterness, that is to say, the devil by the devil; but sweetness dispels bitterness, that is to say the finger of God casts out the evil spirit.” We must, perhaps, regret that Luther did not on various occasions remember this excellent advice.HRSCV1 78.15

At Neustadt on the Orla there was nothing but disunion. Dissensions and quarrels reigned in the convent, and all the monks were at war with their prior. They assailed Luther with their complaints. The prior Michael Dressel, or Tornator, as Luther calls him, translating his name into Latin, on his side laid all his troubles before the doctor. “Peace, peace!” said he. “You seek peace,” replied Luther; “but it is the peace of the world, and not the peace of Christ that you seek. Do you not know that our God has set his peace in the midst of war? He whom no one disturbs has not peace. But he who, troubled by all men and by the things of this life, bears all with tranquillity and joy—he possesses the true peace. Say rather with Christ: The cross, the cross! and there will be no cross. For the cross ceases to be a cross, as soon as we can say with love: O blessed cross, there is no wood like thine!” On his return to Wittenberg, Luther, desiring to put an end to these dissensions, permitted the monks to elect another prior.HRSCV1 79.1

Luther returned to Wittenberg after an absence of six weeks. He was afflicted at all that he had seen; but the journey gave him a better knowledge of the Church and of the world, increased his confidence in his intercourse with society, and afforded him many opportunities of founding schools, of pressing this fundamental truth that “Holy Scripture alone shows us the way to heaven,” and of exhorting the brethren to live together in holiness, chastity, and peace. There is no doubt that much good seed was sown in the different Augustine convents during this journey of the reformer. The monastic orders, which had long been the support of Rome, did perhaps more for the Reformation than against it. This is true in particular of the Augustines. Almost all the pious men of liberal and elevated mind, who were living in the cloisters, turned towards the Gospel. A new and generous blood erelong circulated through these orders, which were, so to speak, the arteries of the German church. As yet nothing was known in the world of the new ideas of the Wittenberg Augustine, while they were already the chief topic of conversation in the chapters and monasteries. Many a cloister thus became a nursery of reformers. As soon as the great struggle took place, pious and able men issued from their obscurity, and abandoned the seclusion of a monastic life for the active career of ministers of God’s Word. At the period of this inspection of 1516 Luther awakened many drowsy souls by his words. Hence this year has been named “the morning star of the gospel-day.”HRSCV1 79.2

Luther resumed his usual occupation. He was at this period overwhelmed with labor: it was not enough that he was professor, preacher, and confessor; he was burdened still further by many temporal occupations having reference to his order and his convent. “I have need almost continually,” writes he, “of two secretaries; for I do nothing else all the day long but write letters. I am preacher to the convent, I read the prayers at table, I am pastor and parish minister, director of studies, the prior’s vicar (that is to say, prior eleven times over!), inspector of the fish-ponds at Litzkau, counsel to the inns of Herzberg at Torgau, lecturer on Saint Paul, and commentator on the Psalms I have rarely time to repeat the daily prayers and to sing a hymn; without speaking of my struggles with flesh and blood, with the devil and the world… Learn from this what an idle man I am!”HRSCV1 79.3

About this time the plague broke out in Wittenberg. A great number of the students and teachers quitted the city. Luther remained. “I am not certain,” wrote he to his friend at Erfurth, “if the plague will let me finish the Epistle to the Galatians. Its attacks are sudden and violent: it is making great ravages among the young in particular. You advise me to fly. Whither shall I fly? I hope that the world will not come to an end, if Brother Martin dies. If the pestilence spreads, I shall disperse the brothers in every direction; but as for me, my place is here; duty does not permit me to desert my post, until He who has called me shall summon me away. Not that I have no fear of death (for I am not Paul, I am only his commentator); but I hope that the Lord will deliver me from fear.” Such was the resolution of the Wittenberg doctor. Shall he whom the pestilence could not force to retire a single step, shrink before Rome? Shall he yield through fear of the scaffold?HRSCV1 79.4