722 MOZLEY'S TRmUTE TO LUTHER which seemed, by some inebriation of the intellect, to have dreamed itself out of Christianity into paganism, ignored by a sort of common consent the Gospel revelation, and instituted again the Groves of Academus. An elegant heathen Pope who carried on Tusculan disputations; cardinals who adorned their walls with scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and devoted themselves to Ciceronian Latin; and a whole scene of luxurious intellectuality in Rome, contrasted bitterly with the palpable superstitions and abuses of the out-of-doors world; and the center of Christendom, putting itself quietly and unconcernedly ab extra to a whole system for which it was responsible, while it taught men to despise that system, provoked at the same time disgust and rebellion against its own hypocrisy. . .. The morals of the Roman ecclesiastics were scandalous, and it was only a question whether their vices themselves or the shamelessness with which they indulged them was the worse feature. (pp. 354-356.) The profligacy of the ecclesiastics of the Roman Court itself was notorious; and the bishops at large had managed to raise against themselves a strong popular charge of pride and luxury which it is impossible for the fairest reader of history to overlook. (P.373.) The sale of indulgences in Germany in the year 1517, conducted by the Dominican monk Tetzel, signally exhibited the impostures and abuses of that system. Coarse, bold, and brazen -there is strong reason for adding immoral-Tetzel carried out the system with a swing and, intent solely on performing his office with practical efficiency, hawked his commodity, in the perfect unconsciousness of vulgar zeal, in churches, public streets, taverns, and a,lehouses, like a spirited man of business. At a cross set up in the market place, from which the Pope's arms were suspended, the auctioneer extolled the merits of his article, and announced that as soon as ever "the money clinked" in Tetzel's box, sin to that amount was forgiven -the crowd standing about with a mixture of fun and business, as it does in a fair. LUTHER'S TEACHING A human soul was absolutely evil and therefore could not, according to any existing method, be justified. Luther had to find a solution for the difficulty. He found one in the doctrine of imputation. . .. The difficulty of ab-MOZLEY'S TRIBUTE TO LUTHER 723 solute evil on man's part had a complete and triumphant solution in the doctrine of absolute imputation on God's. Quite a new principle in the Christian world. Weare perfectly righteous with the perfect righteousness of Christ. (Pp.338-340.) With tremendous energy he inculcates unceasingly this doctrine. It is by faith sole, not by faith perfected in love, that we are justified. Luther had got his Eureka. He dwelt upon it, now that he had got it, with deep and untiring relish; he handled it and embraced it with perpetual fondness. He felt like a person possessed of a great secret, for which the whole world had been struggling from its creation and never yet· attained. He felt as Newton might have felt when he had discovered the principle of gravitation, or as Harvey might have felt when he had discovered the circulation of the blood, or as one of the elder sages might have felt had he discovered the elixir vitae or the principle of alchemical transmutation, etc. He saw the whole world wandering in a maze on this subject, going round and round, and pursuing their own footsteps, etc. He saw a fatal error, affecting the very foundation of the Christian system, in undisturbed possession of the Christian world, and he saw in himself the person destined to subvert it. He departed wholly from the established type of sermon, quoting, instead of the schoolmen, the Bible, especially Saint Paul's Epistles. (Pp.350-352.) "Luther's justification is rejected. His fanatical faith is opposed by the Catholic faith." (Pp. 347, 350.) Formally and literally stated, the Lutheran dogma of justification by faith is so inconsistent ,vith the first principles of common sense and natural religion that, in. their shape, no human being can possibly believe it. It requires us to believe that that which makes a man pleasing to God, or justifies him, has nothing to do with morality or goodness in him; and being moral creatures, we cannot believe this, Luther himself could not believe it, or mean practically to teach it .... If a man is justified, or is in God's favor, without works, then whatever other place or subsequent importance may be assigned to works, he feels tolerably easy about them; 724 MOZLEY'S TRIBUTE TO LUTHER the anxious point is passed, and he can afford to take his leisure. This was the arrangement, then, which the Lutheran dogma of justification made. Not denying all place to good works, Luther deprived them of their conditional place; he took from them all contemporary action in the process of justification and gave them a subsequent one. "I allow," he says, "that good works also are to be inculcated, but in their own time and place, that is to say, when we are out of this capital article of justification." "I too say that faith without works is null and void, but not," he adds, "that faith has its solidity from its works, but only that it is adorned by them. Christians do not become just by doing just things, but being already just, they do just things .... " It allows the mind, reposing upon a justification already past and complete, to proceed to good works as a sort of becoming and decorous appendage of that state. Thus set at ease, the Christian can, if he likes, fall back upon an easier and more casual and secular class of good works; and Luther advises him not to be spiritually ambitious. "There is no such great difference between a good Christian and a good citizen in the matter of works. The works of a Christian are in appearance mean. He does his duty according to his calling: governs the state, rules his house, tills his field, does good to his neighbor." Such appears to be the practical upshot and meaning of Luther's dogma. Not absolutely denying the fundamental truth of natural religion that man should do good works (Pp.434-437.) The Gospel language was only a pious fraud. (P.394.) Luther's sermon on matrimony in 1522 gives license from which the natural conscience of a heathen and a savage would recoil. (P.401.) Of course the don never read the beautiful sermon but lifted his vicious slander from the French Catholic Audin, whom he himself calls "an enemy" of Luther. THE THESES On October 31, 1517, Luther fastened on the church doors ninety-five theses against these indulgences ... and alarmed the old and awakened the new intellect in the Church. (P.353.) Luther now stood before the world as a Reformer. MOZLEY'S TRIBUTE TO LUTHER 725 Tetzel erected a scaffold in one of the promenades of Frankfort, walked in procession to it with his insignia as Inquisitor of the faith, preached a sermon, ordered the heretic to be brought forward for punishment, placed the theses on the scaffold, and burned them. Rome was destined to find its match. CAJETAN Luther said: "Christ has acquired a treasure by His merits; the merits, therefore, are not the treasure." Cajetan had committed a mistake, and did not regain his position. The issue of the conference was a disappointment at Rome; the fault was thrown upon Cajetan's stiffness and asperity. (Pp. 361, 362.) ECK The great disputation at Leipzig brought together all the young theologians of Germany, and Luther did immense execution. Pitted, greatly to his advantage, against the sharpest, noisiest, most vain, impudent, and unscrupulous disputant of the age, he won at one morning many of the subsequent lights of the Reformation. (P.369.) KAISER KARL V Luther appeal'ed more as a conqueror than a criminal; the very scene which was intended to suppress him was his greatest elevation, and his condemnation established him in the position of a successful and recognized reformer. (P.370.) THE REFORMER Luther was primarily a doctrinal reformer. (P.351.) Luther had a completely new ground, both doctrinal and ecclesiastical, to make; he had a new doctrine, the Lutheran dogma of justification by faith, to propagate and transmit to posterity; he had a new society to form, which was to be the keeper and transmitter of it. It was absolutely necessary to construct a whole new system, internal and external, doctrinal and corporate; that is to say, a new Church. (P.382.) The great doctrine he had to promulgate created his own Church, and sanctioned its own priesthood and sacraments .... The new Lutheran Church rose up because the Lutheran doctrine wanted it, and appealed to no other sanction or right. (P.383.) 726 MOZLEY'S TRIBUTE TO LUTHER SENSIBLE An easy, capacious liberalism objected to the dogmatic enforcement of fasts and feasts, vestments, images, and the like, but so long as they were left voluntary saw no harm in them. Dogmatism in rejecting and dogmatism in enforcing were both condemned. (P.386.) JOVIAL Luther always exerted the powers of Comus towards his adversaries. Their human countenance, The express resemblance of the gods is changed Into some brutish form of wolf or bear, Or ounce, .or tiger, hog, or bearded goat. (P.377.) His popular winning character. . .. The sweetness and fascination which mingled with the power of his character. (P.368.) Popular leader and mover of masses. . .. He had obvious weight and solidity; he had the stamp of practical power upon him. (P. 369.) A bold original mind. (P.371.) Luther could not have done what he did if he had not been constitutionally endowed with powers of action in the most wonderful degree, and to possess these powers was to possess a never-failing stimulus to temper. (P.379.) Luther's was a powerfully and strikingly religious mind. Whether his religion was a true one or not, he had one; he lived for its sake; he was full of it; it inspired, strengthened, and stimulated him and made him what he was. He stood before men like a being from another world, possessed of an intensity of religious belief and ardor to which ordinary men had nothing comparable, and which the world gazed upon as it does upon any transcendental phenomenon. Out of the whole ecclesiastical corps of the day not a man was to be found who could meet him on this ground. Everybody knows the great weight and influence of "signs" in the religious department; people have always sought after signs and always will .... Luther was a striking phenomenon of the religious class, an instance of a man possessing and communicating the most powerful religious convictions. The religious reason thus came in, and Luther gained numbers on the ground that he seemed to have earnestness on his side, while the Church was MOZLEY'S TRIBUTE TO LUTHER 727 worldly and secular. A marvelous combination of the worldly politician and deep religious enthusiast, Luther was confronted by the talent and tact of commonplace men, and he rode over it easily and triumphantly. Legate after legate and diet after diet broke down before him; they could do nothing; he had all his own way. He succeeded for the plain reason that there was not in the whole of Christendom his match, and that the greater man, like the greater momentum, naturally prevails. What indeed must have been the prostration of the Church when, in the person of Pope Adrian, she humbly and almost on her knees implored Erasmus for help against Luther; and the lukewarm indifferentist refused with the iemark "I told you what was coming." (Pp.374-375.) Luther had enormous activities, and had that strong passion which goes along with them, and he was lifted by himself, in connection with events, into a position which demanded the constant support which the whole strength of his nature could give. He had a whole cause to push, maintain, and support -a whole world to oppose. His strength carried him through his work. (P.381.) The whole world pestered him with questions, he said. The magnanimous ease and repose of the great leader of the movement stands out strikingly amid the petty scruples and small activities of the inferior agents, and Luther submits to all these questionings with that half-kind, half-scornful condescension which dignified persons submit to any bore which their position brings upon them. (P.386.) This dogma of justification has unquestionably had an important and influential career, and Luther has succeeded in impressing an idea very deeply and fixedly upon a theological posterity. It covers all Protestant Gennany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway; it has always had, and has now, a considerable reception within our own Church. Its effects are too apparent. . . . Our divines as a body have indeed done their duty with respect to this idea, and have exposed its onesidedness and hollowness, its opposition to Scripture and reason, and they have prevented English Lutheranism, though it has gained extensive influence, from getting predominance. [Bishop Bull.] But the Lutheran dogma goes on, being the comfort and stay. the one Christian creed, the one religion of many minds. 728 THE SLAVONIC LUTHER ... We see the facts before us, and must be mainly content with them. (P.347.) The Lutheran Adam is a superior creation to the Calvinistic Adam of Milton. (P.345.) Luther was the original discoverer of that set of ideas which Calvin only compacted and systematized. (P.350.) Luther was a great man, the great author of the Reformation. (Pp.410-411.) Yes, and Luther's "fanatical" and immoral teaching freed this Oxford don himself from the tyranny of the corrupt Pope. Oak Park, Ill. The Slavonic Luther By ANDREW WANTULA * I Where the largest and mightiest Polish River, the Vistula, rises, lies a small country known as Cieszyn Silesia (Teschen Silesia). After the last World War two Slavonic sister nations, Poland and Czechoslovakia, shared this land between them. To a large extent the river Olza formed a natural boundary between these two nations, and the old capital, the city of Cieszyn, was divided between them. From 1290 until 1653 this country was an independent dukedom. The rulers were the Dukes of Sieszyn of the Royal House of the Piasts. After the death of the last duchess of Sieszyn, Elizabeth Lucretia, who left no successor, the land was incorporated into the Hapsburg Monarchy and remained under that rule until the year 1918. It is not generally known among Evangelical people outside Europe that in spite of everything the Lutherans of Polish descent maintained themselves there, deeply conscious of their past and equally enthusiastically attached to their faith. They numbered over 100,000 souls. In addition, there were also Lutherans of German descent. Prior to World War II these Lutherans were organized in seventeen parishes and formed the Diocese of Silesia. It belonged to the Evangelical Augsburg Consistory in Warsaw. * Dr. Wantula is pastor of the Polish Lutheran parish, London, England. -ED. NOTE.