It is essential to dwell upon these passages, since, the force of the Reformer's great doctrine cannot possibly be apprehended as long as he is supposed to attribute the efficacy of which he speaks to any inherent quality in the human heart itself. It is the word and promise of God which is the creative force. But this summons a man into a sphere above this world, bids him rest upon the divine love which speaks to him, and places him on the eternal foundation of a direct covenant with God Himself in Christ. As in the Theses, so in this Treatise, Luther reiterates that it in no way implies exemption from the discipline of suffering. "Yea," he says, "the more of a Christian any man is, to so many the more evils, sufferings, and deaths is he subject; as we see in the first place in Christ the first-born and in all His holy brethren." The power of which he speaks is a spiritual one "which rules in the midst of enemies, in the midst of distresses. It is nothing else than that strength is made perfect in my weakness, and that I can turn all things to the profit of my salvation; so that even the cross and death are compelled to serve me and to work together for my salvation." "It is a lofty and eminent dignity, a true and Almighty dominion, a spiritual empire in which there is nothing so good, nothing so bad, as not to work together for my good, if only I believe."

If we compare this language with those conceptions of spiritual terror by which Luther had been driven into a monastery, and under which, like so many in his age, he had groaned and struggled in despair, we can appreciate the immense deliverance which he had experienced. The Divine promise had lifted him "out of darkness and out of the shadow of death, and had broken his bonds in sunder." It is this which is the source of the undaunted and joyful faith which marks the whole of the Reformer's public career. "Whose heart," he exclaims, "would not rejoice in its inmost core at hearing these things? Whose heart, on receiving so great a consolation, would not become sweet with the love of Christ: a love to which it can never attain by any laws or works? Who

can injure such a heart, or make it afraid? If the consciousness of sin, or the horror of death rush in upon it, it is prepared to hope in the Lord, and is fearless of these evils and undisturbed, until it shall look down upon its enemies." Such a conviction, uttered in such burning language, lifted the same cloud of darkness and fear from the hearts of the common people of that day, and was welcomed as good tidings of great joy by multitudes of burdened and terror-stricken hearts. Nothing is more characteristic of Luther's preaching, and of the Reformers who follow him, than the sense they display that they have before them souls" weary and heavy-laden." Their language presupposes the prevalence of that atmosphere of spiritual apprehension and gloom already described, and their grand aim is to lead men out of it into the joy and peace and liberty of the Gospel. The consequence is that a new confidence, hope and energy is infused into the moral and spiritual world of that day. The tone of unbounded joy and hope which marks the earliest Christian literature, particularly in the Apostolic Fathers, re-appears in such a Treatise as we are considering, and in the whole religious thought of the Reformers; and it would almost seem as if the long agony of the Middle Ages had but enhanced the joy of the final deliver

ance.

It is unnecessary, for our present purpose, to dwell long upon the second point of the Treatise, in which Luther illustrates his second proposition that "a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all and subject to every one." It will be enough to observe that Luther is just as earnest in insisting upon the application of faith in the duties of charity and self-discipline as upon the primary importance of faith itself. The spirit of faith, he says, "applies itself with cheerfulness and zeal" to restrain and repress the impulses of the lower nature. "Here works begin; here a man must not take his ease; here he must give heed to exercise his body by fastings, watchings, labour, and other reasonable discipline, so that it may be subdued to the spirit, and obey and conform itself to the

X

inner man and to faith." Similarly, he will give himself up to the service of others, and it is partly with a view to rendering them such service that he will discipline his body and keep it in due energy and soundness. He starts from the belief that God, without merit on his part, has of his pure and free mercy bestowed on him, an unworthy creature, all the riches of justification and salvation in Christ, so that he is no longer in want of anything except of faith to believe that this is so. For such a Father, then, who has overwhelmed him with these inestimable riches of His, must he not freely, cheerfully, and from voluntary zeal, do all that he knows will be pleasing to Him and acceptable in His sight? "I will, therefore," he says, "give myself as a sort of Christ to my neighbour, as Christ has given Himself to me; and will do nothing in this life except what I see will be needful, advantageous and wholesome for my neighbour, since by faith I abound in all good things in Christ." These practical considerations will afford the measure by which a man determines the discipline to which he subjects himself, and the ceremonies which he observes. They will not be observed for their own sake, but as means to an end, and therefore will never be practised in excess, as though there were some merit in the performance of them. They are like the scaffoldings of builders, valuable only as a temporary assistance, in the construction of the building itself. "We do not condemn works and ceremonies; nay, we set the highest value on them. We only condemn that opinion of works which regards them as constituting true righteousness." In asserting these principles, Luther was certainly putting the axe to the root of the portentous growth of ascetic and ceremonial observances which prevailed in his day, and which were too generally regarded as of the very essence of religion. He enabled men, as it were, to look on such ceremonies from the outside, as a thing external to them, and to reduce or rearrange them with a simple view to practical usefulness. But no more earnest exhortations to due self-discipline, and to true charity, could well be found than are contained in the second part of the De Libertate

It will be evident, however, what a powerful instrument of reformation was placed in men's hands by the principles of this Treatise. Every Christian man, by virtue of the promise of Christ, was proclaimed free, so far as the eternal necessities of his soul were concerned, from all external and human conditions whatever. Nothing, indeed, was further from Luther's intention or inclination than the overthrow of existing order, or the disparagement of any existing authority which could be reasonably justified. His letter to Pope Leo, prefixed to the Treatise we have been considering, shows that while denouncing unsparingly the abuses of the Court of Rome, he was sincere in his deference to the See of Rome itself. But the principle of justification enabled him to proclaim that if that See or any existing Church authority, misused its power, and refused to reform abuses, then, in the last resort, the soul of man could do without it. In that day at all events-and perhaps in our own to a greater extent than is sometimes supposed-this conviction supplied the fulcrum which was essential for any effectual reforming movement. As is observed by the Church historian Gieseler, in his admirable account of the early history of the Reformation, the Papacy had ever found its strongest support in the people at large. In spite of all the discontent and disgust provoked by the corruption of the Church and the clergy, an enormous though indefinite authority was still popularly attributed to the Pope and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The Pope was believed to be in some sense or other the supreme administrator of spiritual powers which were effectual in the next world as well as in the present; and consequently when any controversy with the Church came to a crisis, men shrank from direct defiance of the Papal authority. They did not feel that they had any firm ground on which they could stand if they incurred its formal condemnation; and thus it always had at its command, in the strongest possible sense, the ultima ratio of rulers. The convictions to which Luther had been led at once annihilated these pretensions. "One thing and one alone," he declared,

"is necessary for life, justification and Christian liberty, and that is, the most holy word of God, the Gospel of Christ." As we have seen, he proclaimed it "for certain, and firmly established, that the soul can do without everything except the word of God." It is the mission of the Christian ministry, in its administration of the Word and Sacraments, to convey this Gospel to the soul, and to arouse a corresponding faith. But the promise is not annexed indissolubly to that administration, and the only invariable rule of salvation is that "the just shall live by faith." By this principle, that vague fear of the spiritual powers of the hierarchy was removed, and men were endowed with real Christian liberty.

But the principle went still further; for it vindicated for the laity the possession of spiritual faculties and powers the same in kind as those of the clergy. All Christian men are admitted to the privilege of priesthood, and are "worthy to appear before God to pray for others, and to teach one another mutually the things which are of God." In case of necessity, as is universally recognized, Baptism can be validly administered by lay hands, and English Divines, of the most unimpeachable authority on the subject, have similarly recognized that the valid administration of the Holy Communion is not dependent on the ordination of the minister by Episcopal authority.1 Luther urges accordingly that all Christians possess virtually the capacities which, as a matter of order, are commonly restricted to the clergy. Whether that restriction is properly dependent upon regular devolution from Apostolic authority, or whether the ministerial commission can be sufficiently conferred by appointment from the Christian community or congregation as a whole, becomes on this principle a secondary point. Luther pronounced with the utmost decision in favour of the latter alternative; but the essential element of his teaching is independent of this question. By whatever right the exercise of the ministry may be restricted to a particular body of men,

1 See, for instance, Bp. Cosin's Works, Appendix, vol. i., 31, in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology.