History of the Reformation, vol. 3

Chapter 3

Commencement of the Reform—Marriage of Feldkirchen—The Marriage of Monks—Theses—Tract against Monachism—Luther no longer a Monk

While the doctor of Wittenberg, thus dead to the world, was seeking relaxation in these sports in the neighborhood of the Wartburg, the work was going on as if of itself: the Reform was beginning; it was no longer restricted to doctrine, it entered deeply into men’s actions. Bernard Feldkirchen, pastor of Kemberg, the first under Luther’s directions to attack the errors of Rome, was also the first to throw off the yoke of its institutions. He married. HRSCV3 315.1

The Germans are fond of social life and domestic joys; and hence, of all the papal ordinances, compulsory celibacy was that which produced the saddest consequences. This law, which had been first imposed on the heads of the clergy, had prevented the ecclesiastical fiefs from becoming hereditary. But when extended by Gregory VII to the inferior clergy, it was attended with the most deplorable results. Many priests had evaded the obligations imposed upon them by the most scandalous disorders, and had drawn contempt and hatred on the whole body; while those who had submitted to Hildebrand’s law were inwardly exasperated against the Church, because, while conferring on its superior dignitaries so much power, wealth, and earthly enjoyment, it bound its humbler ministers, who were its most useful supporters, to a self-denial so contrary to the Gospel. HRSCV3 315.2

“Neither popes nor councils,” said Feldkirchen and another pastor named Seidler, who had followed his example, “can impose any commandment on the Church that endangers body and soul. The obligation of keeping God’s law compels me to violate the traditions of men.” The re-establishment of marriage in the sixteenth century was a homage paid to the moral law. The ecclesiastical authority became alarmed, and immediately fulminated its decrees against these two priests. Seidler, who was in the territories of Duke George, was given up to his superiors, and died in prison. But the Elector Frederick refused to surrender Feldkirchen to the Archbishop of Magdeburg. “His highness,” said Spalatin, “declines to act the part of a constable.” Feldkirchen therefore continued pastor of his flock, although a husband and a father. HRSCV3 315.3

The first emotion of the reformer when he heard of this was to give way to exultation: “I admire this new bridegroom of Kemberg,” said he, “who fears nothing, and hastens forward in the midst of the uproar.” Luther was of opinion that priests ought to marry. But this question led to another,—marriage of monks; and here Luther had to support one of those internal struggles of which his whole life was composed; for every reform must first be won by a spiritual struggle. Melancthon and Carlstadt, the one a layman, the other a priest, thought that the liberty of contracting the bonds of wedlock should be as free for the monks as for the priests. The monk Luther did not think so at first. One day the governor of the Wartburg having brought him Carlstadt’s theses on celibacy: “Gracious God!” exclaimed he, “our Wittenbergers then will give wives even to the monks!” This thought surprised and confounded him; his heart was troubled. He rejected for himself the liberty that he claimed for others. “Ah!” said he indignantly, “they will not force me at least to take a wife.” This expression is doubtless unknown to those who assert that Luther preached the Reformation that he might marry. Inquiring for truth, not with passion, but with uprightness of purpose, he maintained what seemed to him true, although contrary to the whole of his system. He walked in a mixture of error and truth, until error had fallen and truth remained alone. HRSCV3 315.4

There was, indeed, a great difference between the two questions. The marriage of priests was not the destruction of the priesthood; on the contrary, this of itself might restore to the secular clergy the respect of the people; but the marriage of monks was the downfall of monachism. It became a question, therefore, whether it was desirable to disband and break up that powerful army which the popes had under their orders. “Priests,” wrote Luther to Melancthon, “are of divine appointment, and consequently are free as regards human commandments. But of their own free will the monks adopted celibacy; they are not therefore at liberty to withdraw from the yoke they voluntarily imposed on themselves.” HRSCV3 315.5

The reformer was destined to advance, and carry by a fresh struggle this new position of the enemy. Already had he trodden under foot a host of Roman abuses, and even Rome herself; but monachism still remained standing. Monachism, that had once carried life into so many deserts, and which, passing through so many centuries, was now filling the cloisters with sloth and often with licentiousness, seemed to have embodied itself and gone to defend its rights in that castle of Thuringia, where the question of its life and death was discussed in the conscience of one man. Luther struggled with it: at one moment he was on the point of gaining the victory, at another he was nearly overcome. HRSCV3 315.6

At length, unable longer to maintain the contest, he flung himself in prayer at the feet of Jesus Christ, exclaiming: “Teach us, deliver us, establish us, by Thy mercy, in the liberty that belongs to us; for of a surety we are thy people!” HRSCV3 316.1

He had not long to wait for deliverance; an important revolution was effected in the reformer’s mind; and again it was the doctrine of justification by faith that gave him victory. That arm which had overthrown the indulgences, the practices of Rome, and the pope himself, also wrought the downfall of the monks in Luther’s mind and throughout Christendom. Luther saw that monachism was in violent opposition to the doctrine of salvation by grace, and that a monastic life was founded entirely on the pretended merits of man. Feeling convinced, from that hour, that Christ’s glory was interested in this question, he heard a voice incessantly repeating in his conscience: “Monachism must fall!”—“So long as the doctrine of justification by faith remains pure and undefiled in the Church, no one can become a monk,” said he. This conviction daily grew stronger in his heart, and about the beginning of September he sent “to the bishops and deacons of the Church of Wittenberg,” the following theses, which were his declaration of war against a monastic life:— HRSCV3 316.2

“Whatsoever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23). HRSCV3 316.3

“Whosoever maketh a vow of virginity, chastity, of service to God without faith, maketh an impious and idolatrous vow,—a vow to the devil himself. HRSCV3 316.4

“To make such vows is worse than the priests of Cybele or the vestals of the pagans; for the monks make their vows in the thought of being justified and saved by these vows; and what ought to be ascribed solely to the mercy of God, is thus attributed to meritorious works. HRSCV3 316.5

“We must utterly overthrow such convents, as being the abodes of the devil. HRSCV3 316.6

“There is but one order that is holy and makes man holy, and that is Christianity or faith. HRSCV3 316.7

“For convents to be useful they should be converted into schools, where children should be brought up to man’s estate; instead of which they are houses where adult men become children, and remain so for ever.” HRSCV3 316.8

We see that Luther would still have tolerated convents as places of education; but erelong his attacks against these establishments became more violent. The immorality and shameful practices that prevailed in the cloisters recurred forcibly to his thoughts. “I am resolved,” wrote he to Spalatin on the 11th of November, “to deliver the young from the hellish fires of celibacy.” He now wrote a book against monastic vows, which he dedicated to his father:— HRSCV3 316.9

“Do you desire,” said he in his dedication to the old man at Mansfeldt, “do you still desire to rescue me from a monastic life? You have the right, for you are still my father, and I am still your son. But that is no longer necessary: God has been beforehand with you, and has Himself delivered me by his power. What matters it whether I wear or lay aside the tonsure and the cowl? Is it the cowl—is it the tonsure—that makes the monk? All things are yours, says St. Paul, and you are Christ’s. I do not belong to the cowl, but the cowl to me. I am a monk, and yet not a monk; I am a new creature, not of the pope, but of Jesus Christ. Christ, alone and without any go-between, is my bishop, my abbot, my prior, my lord, my father, and my master; and I know no other. What matters it to me if the pope should condemn me and put me to death? He cannot call me from the grave and kill me a second time The great day is drawing near in which the kingdom of abominations shall be overthrown. Would to God that it were worth while for the pope to put us all to death! Our blood would cry out to heaven against him, and thus his condemnation would be hastened, and his end be near.” HRSCV3 316.10

The transformation had already been effected in Luther himself; he was no longer a monk. It was not outward circumstances, or earthly passions, or carnal precipitation that had wrought this change. There had been a struggle: at first Luther had taken the side of monachism; but truth also had gone down into the lists, and monachism had fallen before it. The victories that passion gains are ephemeral; those of truth are lasting and decisive. HRSCV3 316.11