Luther as spiritual adviser

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Author's Preface

A NOTHER small contribution to the quadri- ^~^ centennial birthday banquet of Luther ; we hope not an undesirable or superfluous one. That side of the Reformer's character which we try to present here dare not be merely glanced at, but deserves to be attentively considered. Here we may look down most deeply into his heart, for here the soul of his grand work reveals itself to us.

Constant reference has been made to the sources, and, where it was necessary, the Latin has been translated into German, as this little book is meant to be intelligible to everybody.

Chapter I. How Luther Cared For His Own Soul

AN old proverb says : "Physician, heal thyself" (Lk. iv. 23). We know very well that not every proverb is a true word ; that, even if it contains a truth, -still it does not hit the point in every case. Would the Lord have acted worthily of himself and in a manner well-pleasing to God, if he, despite his finding no faith among those of his own family, had done miracles in Nazareth, or if, in view of the scoffing assertion: "He helped others, let him help himself, if he be Christ, the chosen one of God" (Lk. xxiii. 35), he had torn out the nails from his hands and feet and had come down from the cross? But this old proverb is and remains ever true in regard to the pastoral care. No one can properly advise and care for another, unless he has before-hand advised and cared for himself. He who wishes to help others as a physician of souls, must himself first of all have conscientiously used the true remedy. Therefore Luther, as a Spiritual Adviser, had first to care for his own soul.

io Luther as Spiritual Adviser.

There has been only One upon earth who never needed any outside help, who found in the depths of his own pure, devout heart everything that he needed for the true life : and yet this One, our Redeemer, in the darkest hour of his life said to his three chosen apostles : "Remain here and watch with me!" (Matt. xxvi. 38). However high, too, the Reformer stands, he yet often received great benefit from the counsel of others. As long as he lived, he remembered with the heartiest gratitude especially two men, who comforted his poor soul when, in the monastery at Erfurt, it was torturing itself with sins for the most part imaginary, and despairing of the grace of God, and who led it to him who so kindly invites to himself the weary and heavy-laden.

An old, pious fellow-monk, whose name is unfortunately lost, to whom he told his agonies of conscience, pointed him to that principal article of faith, in which it is said: U I believe in a forgiveness of sins." He explained to him this article as meaning that we are not only in general to believe that some receive pardon, as even the devils believe that David and Peter were forgiven, but that God's command is that every one of us individually is to believe that his sins are forgiven.* "Son,

Luther and his own Soul. n

what are you doing?" said the venerable teacher to his pupil, who with many tears was deploring his temptations, "do you not know that the Lord has commanded us to hope?" "By this one word, 'commanded,' " confesses Luther in his commentary on Ps. li. 9,* "I was so strengthened that I knew that the absolution was to be believed. I had indeed often before heard the absolution, but, hindered by foolish thoughts, had supposed I dared not believe it, but heard it as if it did not avail for me."

The general vicar of the Augustinian monks, into whose order Luther had entered, the experienced Dr. Johann Staupitz, gave further aid. This pious, practical mystic had looked deeply into the heart of Holy Scripture, as well as into the human heart. ' ' There is a great mountain. ' You must cross it' — the law says; 'I will cross it' — says presumption; 'You cannot' — says conscience; ' Then I won' t attempt it ' — says despair. ' ' f That was a word from him that Luther could never forget. Staupitz assured him that " Christ does not alarm, but comforts." "Why do you torment yourself with these speculations?", Staupitz once called to him. J ' ' Look at the wounds of Christ and

at his blood shed for you; from these predestination will shine forth." A casual remark of his, that only that repentance is genuine which begins with love to righteousness and to God,* remained, as IyUther himself expresses it, sticking like the sharp arrow of a warrior in his soul, and he found the Scriptures to be in perfect harmony with it. Through his Staupitz, as he afterwards liked to call him, he was liberated from the morbid consciousness of sin by the statement: "You want to be an imaginary sinner and to regard Christ as an imaginary Saviour. You must accustom yourself to think that Christ is a real Saviour and that you are a real sinner. God does nothing for fun nor for show, and he is not joking when he sends his Son and delivers him up for us."f Often, when he came with his self-condemnatory complaints, he was dismissed with the answer: u Magister Martin, that I do not understand." J " To Doctor Staupitz," thus Luther relates in his Tischreden,§ "I have often confessed, not about women, but real knotty questions, when he would reply: 'I don't understand it.' That was giving comfort rightly.

*Briefe. De Wette, i, 116.

% Tischreden, Aurif., 314, b. Forst, 3, 119.

At last Dr. Staupitz began with me as we were eating, and I was so sad and dejected, saying: 'Why are you so sad, brother Martin?' Then I said: 'O, what shall I do?' Said he: 'Ah, you do not know that this trial is good and necessary for you, else nothing good would ever come of you.' That he did not himself understand, for lie thought I was learned, and if I had no temptations I should become proud and haughty. But I made the application in accordance with the saying of Paul: 4 A thorn in the flesh was given to me, lest I should be exalted above measure.' Therefore I accepted it as a word uttered by the voice of the Holy Spirit." Though Luther, already in the monastery, had made the experience that those of whom he hoped that they might understand his spiritual anxieties and sufferings could frequently not advise nor help him, this experience still did not prevent him from afterwards looking about for brotherly encouragement. He never regarded himself as all-sufficient, nor as highly lifted up above all others ; humbly and urgently he besought help in hours of trial. "On Saturday Visitationis Mariae (July 9th, T 5 2 7)i" reports Luther's most intimate friend in Wittenberg, the excellent Dr. JohannBugenhagen,* "Dr. Martinus Lutherus, our dear father, had a

* Luther's Werke, Jena, 3, 403, b.

severe temptation, like those we are often told of in the Psalms. He had indeed previously endured several such temptations, but never any so severe as upon this occasion, as he confessed next day to Dr. Jonas, Dr. Christianus and myself, saying that it was much more severe and dangerous than the physical weakness which attacked him the same Saturday evening at five o'clock; although he afterwards asserted that even this bodily weakness had not been natural, but was perhaps the same sort of suffering that Paul had endured from Satan, who had buffeted him (2 Cor. xii. 7). When now this spiritual temptation on Saturday morning had passed away, the pious Job was concerned lest, if the hand of God should rest so heavily upon him again, he might not endure it. He had perhaps also an additional apprehension that our Lord Jesus Christ was about to call him home. He therefore sent his servant, Wolf, to me at eight o'clock in the morning, telling me to come to him in haste. As he said, 'in haste,' I was somewhat startled, but found the Doctor in his usual condition, standing by the side of his wife, as he was then able to commit and commend everything to God with a calm and collected mind. He is not accustomed to spread his affairs before men who cannot help him and whom he cannot benefit by his complaints ; but he usually exhibits himself to people just as those wish to find him who come to him for comfort. If he is sometimes too merry at table, he does not himself enjoy it, and this cannot displease, much less scandalize, any really devout person; for he is an affable man, and utterly opposed to all sorts of dissimulation and hypocrisy. But, to proceed, I asked the Doctor why he had sent for me. He replied : 'Not for any bad purpose.' When now we had gone up and retired to a private apartment, he commended himself and all that he had with great earnestness to God, began to confess and to acknowledge his sin, the master desiring from his pupil comfort from the Word of God, as also an absolution and release from all his sins, exhorting me, too, to pray for him diligently, which I also asked him to do for me. Further, he desired that I would allow him on the following Sunday to receive the holy sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, for he hoped to be able on that Sunday to preach. He did not seem, so far as I could perceive, to anticipate the attack that befell him in the afternoon, and yet he added : If the Lord means to call me now, his will be done."

When, in the same year, 1527, the plague broke out in Wittenberg, and in the parsonage the wife of the chaplain, George Rorer, became a victim of it, Luther took Dr. Pommer into his house, "not so much " (as he himself writes to Nicholas Hausmann)* "on his account as on my own, that he may be a comfort to me in my loneliness." He joyfully acknowledges what consolation he experienced in the wonderful counsel of God through his guest at that time. "When, in the year 1535, the university of Wittenberg," he reports in the Tischreden,t "was transferred to Jena, on account of the frequent deaths, and I was deeply perplexed and sad about a certain matter, Dr. Pommer said to me : ' Our Lord God in Heaven no doubt is thinking : What more shall I do with this man? I have given him so many splendid great gifts, and yet he persists in doubting my grace.' These words were to me a grand, great comfort, and remained fixed in my heart, as if an angel from Heaven had spoken them to me, although at that time Dr. Pommer did not think that he was giving me a consolation with his words."

The Reformer desired not only the assistance of such prominent evangelical men as Bugenhagen and Jonas ; he was glad, too, of the aid of the lowly brother. When, during the Diet of Augsburg in

*Briefe. De Wette, 3, 219. t Aurif., 328 a. Forst , 3, 159.

Luther and his own Sold. ly

1530, lie was sojourning in the castle at Coburg, he received every two weeks at the hands of the pastor residing there, Rev. Johann Grosche, the absolution and the holy sacrament. He extolled so highly to his pupil and associate, Veit Dietrich, the consoling instruction of this plain pastor, that the former begged Rev. Grosche to make a collection of the passages of Scripture that he generally used in absolution for the consoling of consciences. Grosche did this, and Luther,, who afterwards saw the collection, was so much pleased with it, that he had it transcribed for his own use. For, in one's daily temptations, he declared, he had more than once learned in his own experience, how even the well-known passages often slip the memory and do not occur to one. *

That he cares best for his own soul who is completely immersed in the quickening and saving fountain of the Word of God, no one better knew than our Luther. We know what drove him into < the monastery ; he wanted to find rest for his soul.. What did he first seek for there? "When I went r into the monastery , " he himself relates, f u I asked 1 for a Bible and the brethren gave me one. It was bound in red leather. I made myself so trior?

oughly familiar with it, that I knew on which page and at what place upon the page each passage stood. Had I kept it, I should have become a splendid localis biblicus. No other study pleased me like that of the Holy Scripture. I read in it diligently and imprinted it upon my memory. Often a single passage of weighty import occupied my thoughts the whole day. The significant words of the prophets, too, which I still very well remember, kept me thinking and thinking, although I could not comprehend, them,- e. g., as we read in Ezekiel : " I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked," etc.

The Reformer used the Scriptures for edification as long as he lived. God's Word was his daily food, and his unfailing weapon of offence and defence. Temptations often assailed him, not unfrequently taking the form of self-reproach for having published a doctrine of which the Catholic Church for a long while had no longer known anything, and of which in his day it would not admit an iota. Luther did not advance upon the track of a reformer with a flippant heart ; he was too faithful a son of the Church that ejected him. "If the devil finds me idle," he says,* "and I am not mindful of the Word of God, he causes me con-

Ltit her and his own Soul. 19

scientious scruples, just as if I had not taught rightly, and had injured and distracted those in authority, and had been the occasion of so much scandal and disturbance by my doctrine. But if I lay hold of the Word of God, I am victorious, and can shield myself against the devil, saying : I know and am sure from the Word of God, that will not lie to me, that this doctrine is not mine, but that it is the doctrine of the Son of God. Then I defend myself further, by considering : What does God care for the whole world, if it were ever so great? He has established his Son as king ; if the world will not acknowledge him, he has yet established him firmly enough in his kingdom, so that they will not unseat him, but must let him safely abide. But if the world undertakes to dethrone him, he will overwhelm them and reduce them to ashes. For God himself says : ' This my Son ye shall hear ;' and in the second Psalm he says : * Be wise now therefore, O ye kings : be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, for his wrath will soon be kindled.' "

God's Word afforded him perfect satisfaction. He declares:* "I want only the Word of God and

* Tischreden. Aurif., 11 b. Forst., 1, 36.

do not ask for any miracle, nor desire any vision, nor will I believe an angel that teaches me anything different from the Word of God: I believe only the Word and works of God, for God's Word was sure from the beginning of the world, and has never missed, and I see in fact that things are going just as God's Word says."

That a perplexed mind does not find much counsel or comfort from the church fathers, he learned already in the monastery. Only Gerson, among the ecclesiastical writers, he praises, and even him only conditionally. "Gerson alone," he says,* "wrote hitherto about spiritual temptations; all the others felt only physical or carnal temptations: therefore also he alone can comfort and strengthen consciences, for he has learned it through experience. Yet he has not gone so far as to be able to give counsel to consciences in Christ through the Gospel; but he has made the pressing need or temptation tolerable and endurable by mitigating the law, saying: 'Ah, sin and death are after all not so very bad.' "

One good piece of advice from Gerson, however, he heeded, namely: "that one cannot in any way better avoid and drive away the temptations of the devil, and the thoughts that he inspires, than by just heartily despising him." * With all his heart the Reformer despised Satan, who tried to tempt him with all sorts of grievous and wicked thoughts. If he perceives that he is coming, he plays him, as he was fond of saying, f a merry trick. He begins to play on his lute and accompany it with a song. " One of the most beautiful and glorious gifts of God is music," says he. J "Satan is very hostile to it. With this one drives off many temptations and evil thoughts. The devil can't endure it. " Or, he opens the window and looks at the birds. We know in what straits the Church was lying during the Diet at Augsburg, and with what serious thoughts of dying Luther was battling at Coburg, having even selected the place where he was to be buried. But how he threw out of the window everything that burdened his soul, and drew new inspiration and fresh courage from God's free creation! He comforts himself with what he sees, and is so consoled that he rouses up his friends in Augsburg || and Wittenberg with his exquisite mirth.

"Grace and Peace in Christ, my dear Friends!"

* Tischreden. Aurif., 322 b. Forst, 3, 142. flbid. Aurif., 311 a. Forst, 3, 109. J Ibid. Aurif., 577 b. Forst., 4, 563. || Briefe. De Wette, 4, 12 ff.

he writes to those at his home. * u I have received all your letters, and noted how matters are going with you. That you may know how we are getting along here, I inform you that we, namely, Magister Veit and Cyriacus and I, do not go to the diet at Augsburg; but we have been attending nevertheless another diet. There is a cluster of bushes just under our window, like a small forest. The rooks and crows have there assembled a diet, and there is such a coming and going, such a screaming day and night without ceasing, as if they were all drunk, roaring drunk: they are frolicking together, young and old, so that I sometimes wonder that their voice and breath hold out as they do. I would like to know whether there are any of these stylish fellows and restless trash still with you; seems to me they have gathered here from all over the world. I have not yet seen their emperor, but the dignified chaps and the lordly fellows are constantly hovering and bobbing up and down before our eyes; not very splendidly dressed, but all of one color, all alike black and all alike gray-eyed. They all sing the same song, yet with a charming variety of tones, of the young and old, the small and great. They don't care, either, for great palaces and halls; for their hall is

*Briefe. De Wette, 4, 7 ff.

arched over by the beautiful broad sky, their floor is nothing but field, checkered with pretty green shrubs, and the walls are as wide as the ends of the world. They do not concern themselves for horses and harness; they have feathered wheels, by which they can escape the rifles and get out of the way of danger. They are great, mighty lords; but what their conclusions are, I still do not know. But this much, however, I have learned from an interpreter — they are planning a powerful campaign and attack upon wheat, barley, oats, malt and all sorts of grain and corn, and many a one will here become a knight and perform great deeds. So we sit here in the diet, and listen and look on with great satisfaction, as the princes and lords, together with other estates of the empire, so cheerfully sing and enjoy themselves. But it affords us special pleasure to see how bravely they swing their tails, wipe their bills, break down the hedges, and prepare to gain a glorious victory over grain and malt. We wish them success in their pilfering — and would like to see them all together empaled upon a hedge-pole! But I think it is just like the Sophists and Papists, with their preaching and writing. These I must have all in a crowd before me, so that I may hear their agreeable voices and sermons, and see how very useful a people they are, to devour everything upon earth, and in return display their impudence by way of pastime. To-day we heard the first nightingale, for it distrusted the early part of April. We have had charming weather hitherto; it has not yet rained, except a little yesterday. Perhaps it is otherwise with you. God bless you. Be careful housekeepers.

"Martinus Luther, D."

From the Diet of the Malt-turks, April 28th, ijjo.

But a look out of the window did not always suffice. Then in some other way a game had to be played upon the devil, who ever tries to make sad and desponding.*

" Dr. Martin Luther was at one time," we learn :from the Tischreden,t "low-spirited and depressed, whereupon he was taken out for a carriage-ride through woods and across meadows. As his companions sang spiritual songs and were full of good cheer, he said : ' Our singing mortifies the devil

*The senior translator's work ends abruptly at this point, which happens to be the bottom of a page in the original. He here laid down his pen before retiring on the evening of Saturday, June 24th, 1893, and on the following Monday morning, after writing a few personal letters, he was gently called away from scenes of labor to his eternal rest.

LiUher and his own Soul. 25

and gives him pain. But when he sees us grow impatient and hears us moaning, he laughs in his sleeve, for he delights to plague us, especially if we preach and confess Christ. And, since he is a prince of the world and our sworn enemy, and we must travel through his territory, he exacts tribute from us by thus vexing us with all manner of bodily sickness and complaints.' "

But, with all this, the devil cannot always be kept at a distance. He crowds upon one and begins to dispute. Then is just the time to play the wicked enemy a merry trick. "When the devil comes to me at night, ' ' says Luther in the Tischreden,* "to plague me, I give him this answer : ' Devil, I must sleep now, for it is God's commandment and appointment that we work by day and sleep at night. ' If he now further persists, presses upon me and charges me as a sinner, then I ridicule him and say : l Holy Satan, pray for me ! Dear Devil, pray for me, for you have never done anything wrong. You alone are holy. Go before God, and gain grace for yourself. If you want to make me pious, I say to you : ' Physician, heal thyself.'"

The best weapon to employ against all trials and temptations is prayer; but L,uther, great man of prayer that he was, experienced more than once to his sorrow that the spirit of prayer may forsake the believer. He understood, however, how to awaken it again and kindle it to a clear flame. "I am sometimes," he confesses,* u so cold and languid that I cannot pray; then I close my ears and say: 4 1 know that God is not far from me; therefore I must cry and call upon Him.' I recall, on the other hand, the ingratitude and the ungodly ways of the opposers, the Pope with his cankers and vermin, etc., until I grow warm and burn with wrath and hatred, and then I say: 'O Lord, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.' Thus my prayer grows warm and becomes fervent."

By means of prayer he triumphed over all the sorrows of life and the terrors of death. In praying he attained resignation to the divine will, the blessed peace of trust in God. When, in 1527, that spiritual temptation and bodily weakness came upon him, from which he only very slowly recovered, he prayed, as Jonas relates,! as soon as he had regained consciousness after the swoon: u 'My dearest God, if Thou wilt have it that this be the hour which Thou hast ordained

* Tischreden. Aurif., 315 a. Forst, 3, 120. f Luther's Werke. Jena 3, 404 a.

for me, thy gracious will be done!' He further prayed with great fervency of heart the Lord's Prayer and the entire sixth Psalrn. When he was finally placed in bed, he began immediately again to pray, and said: 'Lord, my dearest God, O how gladly, as Thou knowest, would I have shed my blood for the sake of thy Word! But I am perhaps not worthy of such honor. Thy will be done! If Thou wilt have it so, I will gladly die; let but thy holy name be praised and glorified, whether by my life or by my death. But if it were possible, O God, I would gladly yet live, for the sake of thy pious and elect ones. Yet, if my hour is come, do as pleaseth Thee; Thou art a Lord over life and death! My dearest God, Thou hast thyself enlisted me in this cause. Thou knowest that it is thy Word and the truth. Exalt not thine enemies, and let them not rejoice and boastfully cry: "Where is now their God?" but glorify thy holy name to the dismay of the enemies of thy blessed, saving Word ! My dearest Lord Jesus Christ, Thou hast graciously granted me the knowledge of thy holy name; Thou knowest that I believe on Thee with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one true God, and console myself that Thou art our Mediator and Saviour, who hast shed thy precious blood for us sinners. Support me in this hour, and comfort me with thy Holy Spirit!' "

The God of grace comforted him so richly in answer to his prayer, that he was able with cheerful confidence to bid farewell to wife and child. u My dearest Katie," said he,* "should our God at this time take me to himself, I beg you to be resigned to his gracious will. You are my lawful wife ; be very sure of that, and have no doubt whatever about it. Let the blind, ungodly world say against this what it will ; be guided by God's Word and hold fast to it, and you will have a sure, abiding consolation against the devil and all his slandering hosts."

Presently he began again to pray:f u O, my dear Lord Jesus Christ, who hast said: 'Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you,' according to this thy promise, give, Lord, to me asking, not gold nor silver, but a strong, firm faith; seeking, let me find, not worldly pleasure and joy, but comfort and refreshment through thy blessed, saving Word ; knocking, open unto me. I desire nothing that the world counts great and high, for by such things I have not been made better by a handbreadth before Thee; but give me thy Holy Spirit, to enlighten my heart, to strengthen and comfort

* Luther's Werke. Jena, 3, 404 b. f Ibid. Jena, 3, 405 a.

Liither and his own Soul. 29

me in my distress and need, to keep me in true faith and trust upon thy grace until my end! Amen."

He then inquired for his little son: " But where is my dearest little Hans?" When the child was brought, it smiled upon him. This did not break the father's heart, but, filled with the spirit of willing submission, with the most cheerful confidence in God, he said: "O you good poor little child! I now commend my dearest Katie and thee, poor little orphan, to my dear, good God. You have nothing; but God, who is a father of the fatherless and a judge of the widows, will well provide and care for you."

The L-ord at that time heard the prayers of his servant and of anxious friends, and restored him to health. When, at Eisleben, the dying-hour had really come, and he felt the cold death-dew upon his brow, he commended his spirit in prayer into the hands of God.* u O my Heavenly Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Thou God of all comfort, I thank Thee, that Thou hast revealed to me thy dear Son, Jesus Christ, on whom I believe, whom I have preached and confessed, whom I have loved and praised, whom the miserable Pope and all the ungodly dishonor, persecute,

* Luther's Werke. Jena, 8, 385 b.

and blaspheme. I beseech Thee, my L,ord Jesus Christ, let my soul be commeuded to Thee ! O, Heavenly Father, although I must leave this body, and be snatched away from this life, yet I know assuredly, that I shall abide forever with Thee, and that no one shall snatch me out of thy hands." In the days of health the Reformer had composed the noble Hymn of Simeon :