RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Luther, Martin
finally, by Schwenckfeld (q.v.), he published, toward the end of 1544, his Kurze Bekenntnis des Sacraments, containing no new doctrinal development, but savage criticisms of those who disagreed with him, renewed in the following year in his attacks on the theologians of Louvain, where he declared " the Zwinglians and all blasphemers of the Sacrament " to be heretics and cut off from the Christian Church. He had likewise protested against the Eucharistic doctrine of the Bohemian Brethren in 1541, being suspicious of their views, but in the following year he received Augusta in friendly fashion in Wittenberg and gave him the hand of fellowship for his coreligionists. A still more striking proof of his recognition of unity of spirit despite difference of opinion is seen in his attitude toward Melanchthoh, against whose synergistic passages in the later editions of his Loci Luther could never be persuaded to polemize. As early as 1537 Melanchthon was charged with Zwinglian views on the Eucharist, but Luther, though finding much suspicious in his writings, nevertheless desired " to share his heart with him." He also gave high tribute to the Loci and the entire theological activity of his colleague in the preface to the first volume of his Latin works (1545); but Melanchthon is said to have foretold in his illness (1537) that after his death there would be no peace among the theologians associated with himself.
More and more pronounced became Luther's conviction that bitter trials were to come on Germany, whether from the Turks or from in-
23. The ternecine strife. While the whole
Death of world seemed to him to be in the state Luther, it had been in before the flood or the Babylonian exile or the destruction of Jerusalem, he was especially shocked by the immorality in Wittenberg, so that he threatened in 1545 that he would never revisit" it. But he felt his death approaching. In 1544 he declined to prepare a church discipline on the plea of old age and exhaustion, and when, in 1545, he completed his lectures on Genesis, he expressed his longing to die. On Jan. 23, 1546, he went from Wittenberg to Eisleben to settle a mining dispute between the counts of Mansfeld, and was successful. But amid his preoccupations his health had been neglected; a fontanel which he had long had in his thigh had cicatrized; and he had caught a severe cold on his journey. On the evening of Feb. 17 he felt a heavy pressure on his chest, and on the following morning he died, still declaring his adherence to the faith he had preached. His corpse was solemnly buried in the castle church at Wittenberg, where it was rediscovered on the morning of Sunday, Feb. 14, 1892, by two men who had taken part in the restoration of the church ordered by William I., thus disposing of the story that during the Schmalkald War the corpse had been exhumed and buried in a neighboring field.
Surveying the entire course of Luther's life and activity, and especially the development of his theories and teachings, their important and positive content is seen clearly formulated when he entered upon his struggle in 1517; while their logical results, particularly as opposed to the Roman Catho-
lic Church and the papal claims, were fully evolved at the time of his return from the Wartburg. The Peasants' War, often termed the great 24. Sum- incentive to his subsequent career, was mary of really important only as .accentuating Luther's his boldness in the practical task of Doctrinal reformation. After that, modifications Develop- in his doctrine entered only in so far ment. as he emphasized one or another factor, as circumstances required. ; His basal principle was ever " justification by faith in Christ," as set forth especially by Paul and experienced by himselfji Curious as it may seem, however, he never understood the Pauline doctrine of justification as a declaration or assumption of righteousness in man; but 'he took it rather as an inward process, in the believer, of becoming justified. The first step is the forgiveness of sins by grace alone, after which justification and the imputation of righteousness proceed from the Spirit which is given to those thus forgiven, j It is clear, moreover, from his controversy with Agricola, that from the first) Luther held that the rousing of conscience by the mandatory and punitive word of God was a necessary preliminary to belief. A further characteristic of his views on the divine influence on faith and the divine part in those who were justified through faith was the realism with which he asserted the actual and full presence of God in the Holy Ghost. In regard to God, he held that he could never be known from human speculation or from a merely natural revelation, but that man may rise to him from his perfect self-manifestation in Christ, even while refraining, in trusting faith, from penetrating into what is here concealed^ In his concept of the historic Christ, it is noteworthy that he insisted on the most intimate identification of the divine and human, instead of contenting himself, with a mere coexistence of the two natures.
I Luther's doctrine of the Church, or congregation, of Christ and the means of grace conferred by it, was of the highest importance in his activity as a reformer. This was, in his opinion, 25. Theory the congregation of the faithful, who of the become sanctified by the means of Church grace and must exercise them conand the tinually in the name of God. As re- World, gards the moral status of the Christian in this world, proceeding from faith and the Holy Ghost, JLuther held that he already shared in heavenly blessings and was exalted above the world, serving God and himself in the temporal ordinances and estates ordered of God, and partaking thankfully of the earthly blessings vouchsafed him. While (he took a warm interest in the problems of secular, civil, and social life, he was a reformer here only in so' far as he urged that they be considered according to the importance God had given them and with the proper attitude of mind,' If, finally, the inquiry be made whence Luther gained the entire basis of his belief and doctrine, the answer must be that he ever defended the supreme authority of the Bible against the claims of the Roman Catholic Church. This faith is also based on the inner witness which the spirit of God bears to the believer in the right use of the
Luther, Martin Lutherans