During the conversation, a Dominican had been listening at the door, and would fain have come in to spit in Luther's face.281 He refrained, however, though he afterwards made a boast of it. Emser, who had been delighted at seeing his guests battling, while he seemed to hold a due medium, hastened to apologise to Luther for the manner in which the party had gone off.282 Luther returned to Wittemberg.
Chapter XI
Return to Wittemberg—Theses—Nature of Man—Rationalism—Demand at Erfurt—Eck—Urban Regius—Luther's Modesty.
Luther zealously resumed his labours. He was preparing six or seven young theologians, who were forthwith to undergo an examination in order to obtain a licence to teach. And what most delighted him was, that their promotion was to be to Aristotle's disgrace. "I should like," said he, "to multiply his enemies as fast as possible."283 With that view, he at this time published Theses, which deserve attention.
The leading topic which he discussed was liberty. He had already glanced at it in the theses of Feldkirchen, but now went deeper into it. Ever since Christianity began, there has been a struggle, more or less keen, between the opposite doctrines of the freedom and the slavery of man. Some schoolmen had taught, like Pelagius and others, that man possessed in himself the liberty or power of loving God and doing good. Luther denied this liberty, not to deprive man of it, but, on the contrary, to make him obtain it. The struggle, then, in this great question, is not, as is usually said, between liberty and servitude; but between a liberty proceeding from man, and a liberty proceeding from God. Some who call themselves the advocates of liberty, say to man, "You have the power of doing good, and require a greater liberty." Others, who have been called advocates of slavery, say to him, on the contrary, "You have no true liberty; but God offers it to you in the gospel." The one party speaks of liberty, but a liberty which must end in slavery; while the other speaks of slavery, in order to give liberty. Such was the struggle in the time of St. Paul, in the time of Augustine, and in the time of Luther. Those who say "Change nothing!" are champions of slavery. Those who say "Let your fetters fall!" are champions of liberty.
It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the whole Reformation can be summed up in this particular question. It is one of the many doctrines which the Wittemberg doctor maintained—that is all. It would, above all, be a strange illusion to hold, that the Reformation was fatalism, or an opposition to liberty. It was a magnificent emancipation of the human mind. Bursting the numerous bands with which thought had been bound by the hierarchy, and reviving the ideas of liberty, right, and examination, it delivered its own age, and with it ours also, and the remotest posterity. And let it not be said that the Reformation, while it freed man from human despotism, enslaved him by proclaiming the sovereignty of grace. No doubt, it wished to bring back the human will to the Divine, to subordinate the one, and completely merge it in the other; but what philosopher knows not that entire conformity to the will of God alone constitutes sovereign, perfect freedom; and that man will never be truly free, until supreme righteousness and truth have sole dominion over him?
The following are some of the Ninety-nine Propositions which Luther sent forth into the Church, in opposition to the Pelagian rationalism of scholastic theology.
"It is true that man, who is become a corrupt tree, can only will and do what is evil.
"It is not true that the will, when left to itself, can do good as well as evil; for it is not free but captive.
"It is not in the power of the will of man to choose or reject whatever is presented to it.
"Man cannot naturally wish God to be God. His wish is that he himself were God, and that God were no God.
"The excellent, infallible, and sole preparation for grace, is the eternal election and predestination of God.284
"It is false to say that when man does all he can, he clears away the obstacles to grace.
"In one word, nature possesses neither a pure reason nor a good will.285
"On the part of man, there is nothing which precedes grace, unless it be impotence and even rebellion.
"There is no moral virtue without pride or sullenness, that is to say, without sin.
"From the beginning to the end we are not the masters of our actions, but the slaves of them.
"We do not become righteous by doing what is righteous, but having become righteous we do what is righteous.
"He who says that a theologian who is not a logician is a heretic and an adventurer, maintains an adventurous and heretical proposition.
"There is no form of reasoning (syllogism) which accords with the things of God.286
"If the form of the syllogism could be applied to divine things, we should know the article of the Holy Trinity, and should not believe it.
"In one word, Aristotle is to theology as darkness to light.
"Man is more hostile to the grace of God than he is to the law itself.
"He who is without the grace of God sins incessantly, even though he neither kills, nor steals, nor commits adultery.
"He sins, for he does not fulfil the law spiritually.
"Not to kill, and not to commit adultery, externally, and in regard to action, merely, is the righteousness of hypocrites.
"The law of God and the will of man are two adversaries, who, without the grace of God, can never agree.287
"What the law wishes the will never wishes; only from fear it may make a show of wishing.
"The law is the hangman of the will, and is subject only to the Child who has been born unto us.288 (Isaiah, ix, 6.)
"The law makes sin abound; for it irritates and repulses the will.
"But the grace of God makes righteousness abound, through Jesus Christ, who makes us love the law.
"Every work of the law appears good externally, but internally is sin.
"The will, when it turns toward the law without the grace of God, does so only for its own interest.
"Cursed are those who do the works of the law.
"Blessed are all those who do the works of the grace of God.
"The law, which is good, and in which we have life, is the law of the love of God, shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, (Rom., v, 5.)
"Grace is not given in order that works may be done more frequently and more easily, but because without grace there cannot be any work of love.
"To love God is to hate oneself, and know nothing out of God."289