June 1, 1521.
To the strict and firm Francisco von Sickingen, my special lord and patron, 1) Doct. Martin Luther.
1. God's grace and peace in Christ our Lord. We read, O Lord, in the book of Joshua, when God brought the people of Israel into the promised land of Canaan, and slew all the people that were therein, even thirty and one kings with all their cities, that there was not a city so humble as to desire peace, save some of Gideon, so
1) The words: "my" to "patron" are missing in the Jena edition.
Israel was commanded by God to offer and accept peace, but in presumption they all stubbornly fought against Israel, so that the same book says of them, Cap. 11, [19. 20.] thus: "There was no city that surrendered with peace to the people of Israel, except Gibeon, but all were conquered with strife. For it was so wrought of God, that they, defiantly and valiantly contending against Israel, were thereby cast out, and no mercy shown unto them." 2c.
2 This history looks at me as if it wanted to become an example for our popes, bishops, scholars and other spiritual leaders.
*) This writing appeared in many individual editions under the above title. From the years 1521 to 1523, the Erlangen edition lists ten of them. In the collective editions, it is found: in the Wittenberg (1554), vol. VII, p. 258; in the Jena (1564), vol. I, p. 501; in the Altenburg, vol. I, p. 783; in the Leipzig, vol. XVII, p. 692 and in the Erlangen, vol. 27, p. 318 (the attribution again vol. 53, p. 74). The letter also in De Wette, vol. II, p. 13. We give the text according to the Jena edition. The Erlangen edition lists 92 variants of Walch's writing, mostly misprints. Only one variant out of this large number, namely "ernsten" in 8 83, has been able to serve as a real improvement of the text.
Tyrants, who publicly see and grasp that one is getting tired and weary of their thing, and the bright light exposes their deceitful, seductive reproaches 1) manifold in all places, that all cover becomes too short and narrow for them; They still do not humble themselves, do not seek peace, yes, they even let it be offered to them in vain, they wear themselves out, 2) they intend to dim the light by force and to remain in their nature, they think that they are sitting so firmly in the saddle that no one may lift them up, that I worry that it also happens from God that they stubbornly do not think of any humility, do not strive for any peace, so that they must also finally perish without all mercy.
They blame me, but they know well how they have so arrogantly despised me, a poor man. 3) I have often offered peace, shouted and run, offered to answer, argued, appeared at two imperial congresses. I have often offered peace, cried and run, offered to answer, have disputed, have 4) now appeared at two imperial congresses; nothing has helped me, I have encountered no justice, but only pure outrage and violence, nothing more than recantations, and all misfortune has been bred.
4) Well, when the hour comes that they will also call for peace in vain, I hope they will be mindful of their present merit 5). I can do no more, I am now pushed from the plan; they now have time to walk, 6) which mall of them cannot suffer, nor should, nor will. If they do not walk, another will walk without their thanks, who will not, like Luther, teach them by letter and words, but by deed. Praise and thanks to God, the fear and timidity of the hemppotzen 7) in Rome has once been reduced, and the chapter Si quis suadente no longer wants to charm people; the world can now also speak the blessing.
1) i.e. reprehensible things.
2) Wittenberger: "very" instead of "self".
3) Thus the Wittenberg and Jena editions. Erlanger and De Wette: "den".
4) In the old editions: hab.
5) In the old editions: indenck.
6) d. i. change.
7) A Putzen or Potzen - a doll, a straw man, a scarecrow. "Hanfpotzen" is "a cleaning in hemp", as we see from § 90 of this writing.
5) But so that I am not idle in this desert and in my Patmos, I have also written an Apocalypse for myself, 8) which I want to communicate to all who desire it; which I am sending here with all your efforts to show my willingness and gratitude, so that your comfort and prayers may be manifold to me, the unworthy. It is a hurried sermon of confession, made from the cause: In this closest fast I let a gentle instruction go out to the confession children, 9) with request to our spiritual lords and tyrants, that they let the simple consciences with peace half my books; besides oldshown, how their tyranny of the confession hearing had not reason enough. But they with the head through, there is neither hearing nor doubting. Well, I have also seen more water bubbles, and once so hurried sacrilegious smoke, which subjected itself to dampen the sun; but the smoke is no longer, the sun still shines. I will also continue to seek out and bring forth the truth, and fear my ungracious masters as little as they despise me. Neither of us is out of the woods yet; but I have an advantage; I go unharmed. God grant that the truth may have the victory. Hereby commanded by God. Mr. Ulrich von Hütten and Martin Bucer I leave to God be commanded. Given in my Patmos, June 1, 1521.
JEsus.
First, the holy king and prophet David has made a psalm, 176 verses long, and is the very longest, greatest psalm of all, which mau daily once, divided into the prime, third, sixth and ninth, sings and reads in the churches. And is it to be wondered at that almost every verse asks and understands through and through the very thing that the other one does, that where there is not one spirit, it is annoying to hear that in such a large psalm so many times, namely a hundred six and seventy times, only the same thing is invoked over and over again, although with different words. For all the verses and the whole
8) The apostle John wrote the Revelation on the island of Patmos, where he had been banished. Revelation I, 9.
9) This is the preceding paper No. 120.
The opinion of Psalms is in two parts: the first, that God would guide us, teach us, instruct us and keep us in His way, commandment and laws; the second, that He would protect us from man's teaching and commandment. If you pay attention to these two, you will easily understand all the verses and the whole psalm.
Secondly, we ask: why did the prophet do this? It answers itself, namely, that he would ever do a diligent warning, which we would have daily before our eyes, to beware and flee from the laws and commandments of men, as from the greatest accident on this earth, since nothing more beautiful glitters and nothing more terrible tears. Just as Christ, Matth. 7, 15, when he had finished his teaching, concluded it with the fact that we should "beware of false prophets, who come in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves", and the disciples, Matth. 16, 6. 12, strongly admonished that they should "beware of the leaven of the Pharisees", that is, as he himself interprets it, of the teachings of men, who only teach hypocrisy and not the reason.
(3) So David also acted here as if he were to say, "Well, I will make a psalm that is full of warnings about the doctrines of men, and I will pour them out to the point of annoyance, because I see that they shine so beautifully, are so easy to get into, and deviate from God's commandments so cunningly and secretly. Therefore, there is a good reason why this psalm is read daily before others, although it has not helped, and yet Christianity has become full of human laws, even this psalm itself, contrary to its own opinion, is bound with human laws. All clergymen read it every day; they know nothing about what they read in it.
Thirdly, although this psalm alone would be enough to send us away from the laws of men, the accident has been so deeply and widely torn, and all the world has been strongly brought into the wrong opinion, that everyone thinks that such sayings of this psalm and the like are only against public, evil transgressions, not against the pope's or the clergy's laws, and have thus refuted the edge of the sword, 1) yes, a horn over it.
1) i. e. bent over.
that fes] can no longer cut, until now not the Scriptures, but only papal laws rule in all the world. Therefore, it is necessary to rule and storm against such hard-established and ingrained errors with strongly disputing and piercing sayings of the Scriptures, wanting to try whether we can strike them from the plan, and denounce their unjustifiable presumption and unreasonable tyranny, so that we teach and recognize again [that] what God has not commanded is to be avoided like the devil's poison and death, whether it has been set by pope or bishops, angels or devils.
5 To the fourth. To the first, Moses says, Deut. 4:2 [Cap. 12:32], "Ye shall not add unto the word that I speak, neither shall ye do any thing of it." But what is "adding to" but more teaching, and "doing away with," less teaching than Scripture teaches? It may not be said of interpretation, for interpretation does not make its more nor less, but only explains the same. Is this not a clear statement against all laws of men? What are now the 2) Pabst's laws, but vain additions, of which the Scripture gives the devil a name, and calls him in Hebrew "Leviathan", that is, an "additioner", who makes a thing more than it should be.
(6) Therefore, all who make man's law God's law are certainly God's enemies and Leviathan's apostles, and whoever receives and keeps them is Leviathan's disciple. There is no excuse that Moses did not say this about the New Testament, but about the Old; for the apostle Heb. 2:2, 3, 4 says: "It is much more fitting to keep the New Testament, which is through Christ Himself, 3) than the Old, which He gave through the angels. Therefore the papal sect will not be able to stand before this sentence, their law is here.
7. fifth. Solomon also says, Proverbs 30:5, 6: "All the word of God is true," as if tested by fire, "and a shield to all who trust in it.
2) "des" is missing in the Erlanger.
3) "is" is missing in the Wittenberg and Erlanger.
criminal and invented a liar." Behold, he speaks of "all the words of God," not only of the Old Testament, and pronounces all those worthy of punishment and liars who add to them. So it must follow that whoever trusts in human doctrine and additions trusts in lies and deception. So the pope must be no other than a teacher of lies and deceivers of the whole world, with all his companions.
(8) Hence comes the saying in the prophet Isaiah [Cap. 36:6] and in the books of Kings [2 Kings 18:21].1) : "Whoever leans on a reed, the reed will break, and his hand will be cut off," that is, if one trusts in the doctrines of men, which seem to be good and 2) right; as the reed seems like a complete wooden stick, and yet is vain and empty: at last it breaks and makes the hand, that is, all the works done in it, void and harmful. This is the reed that the Jews put into Christ's hand when they mocked him, 3) Matth. 27, 29, meaning the future deceitfulness of papal doctrine and laws.
9 The sixth. JtemJesaias, Cap. 1, 22, punishes the people thus: "Your wine is mixed with water, and your silver has become silver foam." Pouring water into wine is man's) teaching to God's word; selling the same foam for silver. Such a thieving Kretzschmer 4) is the pope also, until he sells vain puddle water for good wine. But I must abstain from such flowery sayings, though they are lovely and the Scriptures are full of them. For the enemies in dispute would like to take an evasion and say: Wine and silver do not interpret divine Scripture, or ever not expressed and clear, as is proper in the dispute with clear sayings of Scripture fence. How is meant
1) Here, the Erlangen edition has reprinted the incorrect citation 1. B. 1, 18. from the old Walch edition. So also in other places of this writing; on page 353 of the 27th volume are four such reprinting errors, Cf. the note in the 18th volume of the St. Louis edition, Col. 885.
2) "and" is missing in the Erlangen edition, while it is in the old editions. Should this printing error also be taken from Walch's old edition?
3) Wittenberger: verspotten; Erlanger: verspotteten.
4) d. i. Krämer, Wirth.
iu the children of Israel, of whom it is written in Joshua [Cap. 8, 24. 10, 28.], how they "kill the enemies with the mouth of the sword," that is, with the edge and sharpness, that it may bite and devour, as it does not with the back or sides. The mouth of the sword is its edge. Thus the word of God must also be wielded with the naked edge, so that it may powerfully devour all opponents and error.
10. to the seventh. Jeremiah wrote a whole chapter about false prophets, Jer. 23; among other words he says thus [v. 16]: Thus says God, the Lord of hosts: "You shall not listen to the word of the prophets who preach to you; they deceive you, and preach their own heart's vision or conceit, and not from the mouth of God." Behold, all the prophets who preach not out of the mouth of GOD, who deceive, and GOD bow, they shall not be heard. Is not the saying clear that where God's word is not preached, no one shall listen, even by the divine majesty's commandment and disgrace, and be it vain deceit?
O pope, o bishops, o priests, o monks, 0 theologians, where do you want to pass here; do you think that it is a small thing, if the high majesty bequeaths what does not go out of God's mouth and is something else than God's word? Not a thresher or a shepherd has said this. If you heard your Lord say to you, "Who told you to do this? I did not tell you to do this; I fear that you would learn so much from it that you should not have done it and should have avoided it as a prohibition. What then shall we do, if the high majesty says: Do not listen, it is not my word; shall we not justly hold up to the pope only the contradiction in all his great laws, which he must confess himself, that it] is only his words from his heart^, not God's words, gone out of God's mouth?
12. to the eighth. But further in the same chapter, v. 21: "I did not send the prophets, nor did they run; I did not command them, nor do they preach. I think it is right enough that no one should preach other than God's word, and it is left enough that the high majesty says: "I have not sent any prophets, nor have they run, nor have I commanded them to preach.
Such things are not commanded, be not the word of God; therefore they shall surely be lies, deceit, and destruction, which are the doctrines of men.
13. further, [v. 22.]: "If they had remained in my counsel, and had given my people to hear my words, I would have converted them from their evil ways, and from their evil deeds." But do you hear here, 1) that God's counsel, God's word should be given to the people to hear, and that otherwise no one can be converted from the evil life to the good? his word must do it, not man's word. What would be the need of God's word if human teachings were to help us? What kind of God would it be, if his word, not enough, needed addition from men? Should we share the honor and thanks, not only to God, but also to the supporters? But God's word is so tender that it cannot suffer any addition; it wants to be alone, or to be nothing at all. God may well suffer that something impure and additional is added to our works and lives, but in His Word, which is supposed to purify us from all additions and impurities, He cannot tolerate additions; otherwise our lives would not be pure forever. Therefore he calls it (Ps. 12, 7.) silver, which is pure, and says: "The words of God are pure, and silver tried and tested, and purified sevenfold." Which he also says in the same Psalm against the adders of human doctrine.
14. to the ninth. Further [v. 28. 29.]: "A prophet who has a dream, let him preach the dream, and he who has my words, let him preach my words rightly. What has the straw to do with the wheat? says GOD. Are not my words like a fire? says GOD, and like a hammer that breaks the rocks?" Behold, man's teaching is "straw," God's word is "fire." How finely they rhyme together! And he who has God's word, let him preach it rightly, not pervert it into the mind of man. He who has a dream, that is, a revelation in his sleep, let him keep it and not make it otherwise. For in Numbers 12:6, 8 God confesses that He reveals His word in] three ways, in a dream, in the vision, and in the mind.
1) i.e. again.
publicly in the spirit. And that we end Jeremiah, God speaks further [v. 30. 31. 32.^ "Watch, I will come upon the prophets, who steal my word one from another (that is, by man's teaching they seem to hide God's word beside it, so that the people do not become aware of how God's word has been taken from them, and accept man's word for God's word); watch, I will come upon the prophets, who raise their own tongues, and yet say: God has said this. Watch, I will come upon the prophets, who dream vain lies, and preach the same, and deceive my people with their lies and babblings. I have not sent them, nor commanded them, wanting to be of use to the people, and yet have been of no use to them, says GOD."
15. to the tenth. Do not move such words, since God Himself indicates so much that nothing is where His word is not, so we are ever stone and wood. If he had said badly that they should not teach such things, and had not added that it was not his command, nor his word, someone might find a loophole and say: Thus not everything would be rejected that is not God's word, but only what is evil and against God's word, and thus they could invent (as they have already done) a means between God's words and false prophets. But the means is here abolished and finally decided that God's word alone, and not man's teachings, shall rule among God's people. For what He has not commanded, counseled, nor commanded, no one shall command or require.
16. to the eleventh. Want to come to the New Testament, and to the first hear what he himself says about it. Matth. 15, 7. 8. 9. Christ says to the Jews, who kept the laws of men and punished His disciples because they did not keep them: "O ye gleamers, Esaias s29, 13.] hath well said of you, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they serve me with men's commandments and doctrines which they teach." Tell me here, what is "serving GOd in vain"? May the text also of a gloss? The commandments of the same men were not evil, as washing hands, clothes, pots and other vessels; why then does Christ throw it off with Isaiah so completely? What may
824 Erl. 87, 328 f. 121. of confession, whether the pope has power 2c. W. XIX, 1025-1028. 825
hie come up for remedy for man s doctrine, to save them]? 1) Do you serve an executioner in vain, [let alone] God; who likes to serve lost service with will?
(17) I think Christ has sufficiently shown how he would have forbidden the commandment of men. He also did it himself, commanded his disciples to do it and had them do it, taught and preached it, which he would not have done without a doubt, and would have given us another example if God had not rejected and forbidden man's teachings, since he had been obedient to God in all things. Therefore, his example is to be followed in all things, without doubt even in disregarding human commandments, if we want to be true Christians otherwise.
18. to the twelfth. St. Paul Rom. 16, 17. f.: "I beseech you, brethren, that ye put on them which make sects and offences beside the doctrine which ye have learned, and depart from them. For they serve not our Lord Christ, but their own bellies; and by good words and fine speeches they deceive the simple in heart." He does not speak of doctrines that are set against, but beside the right doctrine. These are the additions which also make sects, and the simple are easily offended by them, that they lack the right way, and fall into this. Solomon writes about this in Proverbs 4:24-27: "Depart from the mouth that teacheth perverseness, and let the lips that turn thee away be far from thee. Let thine eyes look straight before thee, and let thine eyelids stand right before thee. Make thy feet 2) Walk in a straight line, and all thy ways be straight. Do not turn aside to the right hand or to the left, and turn away thy feet from evil." What do you think that Solomon wants with so many words, that he only keeps us on the straight path, because only God's word and way should be before our eyes, and no byway at all, be it to the right or to the left,
1) In the Jena edition: "zur retten". Wittenberger: "zur redten". Erlanger: "to talk". The reading given by us fits very well to the context. The solution we gave "zu erretten" asked its analogy in "tzur heben" - to raise. Dietz, Dictionary, p. XXXVII.
2) Erlanger: your foot.
good or evil? Now the teachings of men are vain byways, and not the divine road.
19 To the thirteenth. So also St. Peter says 2 Petr. 2, 1. 2.: "There were false prophets among the people before, as there will also be false teachers among you, who will introduce byways and sects next to them, so that many people will perish, and many will follow their destruction." Behold, he also says of byways 3) and sects; which ever shall not be but men's doctrine apart from God's doctrine and ways; and the prettier they shine, the more grievous.
Solomon has set two parables or parables about this, Proverbs 7 and 8. He thus warns with great diligence against the adulteress, who sweetens her word, and leaves the master she had in her youth, and forgets the covenant made with her God. All this is said of the last time, when the church of the devil deceives the true church of God with the laws of men, and describes it thus [Proverbs 9:13-18]: "There is a foolish woman, which gossips much, and entices, and yet can do nothing at all; sitteth in the door of her house upon a chair, in the high place of the city, that she may invite unto her all that pass by the way, and walketh aright in her street. He that is credulous, let him come unto me: and to the heartless she said, O the hidden waters are sweet, and the hidden meat is merry; and he knoweth not that there are vain pits of death, and her guests are in the bottom of hell."
O Pope, how well you are depicted here with your church in the parable or likeness! Who sits in the high place in Christendom? Who sits at the door outside the street? Is it not the outward ceremonialists in sensual holiness? Who lures those who walk rightly into the pits of murder and the bottom of hell? Who is more untruthful and unlearned in the ways of God, than such foolish people of the glitterers? Who seduces the gullible and heartless? What are the hidden waters and concealed food, but that under the appearance of divine truth the simple are deceived with the doctrines of men?
3) Wittenberg and Erlangen: from both ways.
fulfilled? It is a parable, and may not be said of a physical adulteress.
22. to the fourteenth. Item Sprüchw. 7, 4. ff. of the same devil-whore: "Dear son, ask wisdom: you are my sister, and call understanding your friend, that she may protect you from the foreigner, and from the foreigner who makes her words sweet. For I looked out at the window of my house, and saw among the credulous, and perceived there among the children a heartless youth, walking in the street by their corner, and going by the way of their house in the evening, when the day was grown dark, that now the night was dark, and one could not see. And, behold, there met him a woman prepared like a harlot, having an evil heart, talkative and unruly, who could not keep her feet in her house; now she was out, now in the street, and at every corner she was lying in wait. And she embraced him, and kissed him, and set her face and her faces, and said, I have sacrificed for thee, today have I done God's service, therefore went I forth to meet thee, and to seek thy face, and have found thee. I have adorned my bed with good ornaments, I have made it with bands from Egypt, I have sprinkled my chamber with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon. Now come, let us be satisfied with our breasts until the morning, and let us take care of our love. My husband is not at home, he has gone far overland, he has taken a bag full of money with him, he will come home again on the day of the throne. She has inclined him with the quantity of her dressing, and has driven him in with the sweetness of her lips. As soon as he follows her, as an ox goes to the meat-bank, and as in a fetter, where one casteth fools with, until she cleaveth his liver with an arrow; as a bird hasteth to the rope, and knoweth not that his life is for him. Now hearken unto me, my sons, and hearken unto the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart be turned into her way, neither be thou leddest astray into her highway: for she hath wounded many of them, she hath brought them to nought, she hath destroyed all the mighty.
"strangled; their house is a way to hell, and downs into the depths of death."
23 To the fifteenth. That is, of course, spoken in parables. And even though it might be understood by a physical woman, the right understanding is of the teachings of men, because Solomon himself confesses that he speaks parables and parables. As Christ also does in the gospel Watth. 13, 34. 35. He has seen that at the end of the world, when the light of faith is dimmed, and the people of the earth are unintelligent, they will go astray in outward appearances and appearances of holiness, that the same people would be right for the woman called human doctrine and wisdom, who almost praises herself, adorns herself, promises much, and makes the way to salvation easy, as is the case in the church of the pope, on which all these words are true; but now it is too long to gloss over. Enough has been said to those who understand; now we must be contentious with open texts, as said above.
24. to the sixteenth. St. Paul says Gal. I, 8. 9. twice: "If we ourselves, or even an angel from heaven, preach anything else to you than you have received, let it be forbidden." This is a hard word from such an apostle. Now if the doctrine of men is something other than the gospel, it must certainly be maligned. But look, how they have made a hole in this saying with a gloss, which reads thus: The little word "something else" does not mean here that one should no longer teach or hold anything besides it, but that one should not contradict and deny the gospel, which the pope does not do with his laws. Listen here, are these not fine glossirians? If I now ask them for what reason they have this gloss, and who gives them authority to tear apart the apostle's word in this way, they will say, as it is written of them in the 12th Psalm [v. 5]: We ourselves have the power, what do you ask of it? and as the chubby cheeks of the pope paused and spouted in his decree: Ubi est majoritas, ibi est mandandi auctoritas, caeteris manet obediendi necessitas. Because we are the greatest, we have authority to command; all others must be obedient. I think that sounds apostolic and Christian.
the pope has power 2c. W. xix, 1030-1033. 829
25 To the seventeenth. But the gloss is' easily refuted; first, that their own poem is without reason of Scripture. For they may not bring up an example, since the same little word gives the opinion. Secondly, it is clear that St. Paul is not speaking against those who promised the gospel 2) or denied it, as they claim; but against some of the disciples of the other apostles, who wanted to bring in the law of Moses along with the gospel. For he does not even say that they should not obey those who instituted circumcision, feast days, and other "laws of Moses" besides. Now you see, if St. Paul could not suffer that the law of Moses, which was given by God until the time of Christ, would be preached next to the word of God and the gospel, but so highly reproached himself and all the angels from heaven, where they taught addition: what would he say to the Pope's and other people's laws, which God has never 3) commanded?
Therefore this saying of Paul is a real thunderclap, strikes the pope with all his dream teachings and mad laws to powder in the earth. No one will stand before this sentence. St. Paul was not so unspoken, nor so poor in words, that he could have said, "Let him who denies or negates the gospel be destroyed," if that had been his opinion in the word "something else. For in 1 Tim. 1, 3. 4. he also speaks in this way, saying: "I admonished you to remain in Ephesus and to preach to others, so that they would not teach arid things, nor listen to the fables and gospels of birth, which have no end. Here we see that the apostle is not concerned with the denial of the gospel, but rather with other side teachings and sermons that secretly turn the people away from the gospel. They secretly turn the people away from the gospel before they are aware of it.
27 To the eighteenth. He speaks even more clearly, Col. 2, 8: "See to it that no one deceives you through the rational art (philosophy) and vain deceit, through men's laws, which are according to the elements of the
1) In the old editions: Ticht.
2) promise - to deny.
3) Wittenberg and Erlangen: never.
world, and not according to Christ. What could be said more clearly? He speaks clearly: What is not according to Christ, that is, what is not Christ's word and teaching, that is deceit and to be avoided. He calls by name all natural art and wisdom, philosophy, all the doctrines of men; what more shall he call? what does he leave here but Christ alone? Philosophy is ever the greatest thing that men may have; so men's laws are the most spiritual thing they may have. But it is all error and deceit, saith St. Paul.
28. to the nineteenth. And that we also come to the end, he gives the laws of men an old slap, Tit. 1, 13. 14., and commands him thus: "Punish them severely, that they may be sound in faith, and give nothing to the Jewish fables and laws of men, which do no more than turn away from the truth." How is this an honor of human laws, that they 4) lead and turn no more than from the truth! From this it is easy to measure what the apostle St. Paul thinks of the Pope and what kind of governor he considers him, namely of Lucifer in hell, who is the father of all lies [John 8:44], and who raised his apostle in Rome to deceive and corrupt the whole world under the name of Christ, as it is going on now. Hence the saying: Where God builds a church, the devil builds a chapel next to it, and where there is a church consecration, there will also be a tabernacle and a fair. In the same way, in the Old Testament, besides the temple, he has always erected other altars and places and raised up false prophets for them, and in the New Testament, besides the holy gospel, he has raised up the teachings of the pope and his sects, until he alone preaches in all places, and the gospel is under the pew.
Twenty-ninth. But if they hold up the Concilio, wherein many things are set forth to be held, which are not found in the Scriptures? Answer: In some of the councils, articles of faith are explained by Scripture, as Nicene has been, and some things are set forth, drawn from Scripture and established by Scripture; that they should be kept is just as much,
4) "they" is missing in the Erlanger.
as the word of God. But what is humanly set therein (of which there are more than one, and almost all of the kind), they themselves do not keep, who highly praise the Concilio; have also often set one against another, and in one condemned the other, and have become such a confused, extensive thing with the conciliis, that they henceforth set nothing from the Scriptures, but only from their own heads, out of great, sacrilegious presumption, that the Holy Spirit is with them and does not let them err; wherefore they do what they will in the conciliis without fear, without devotion, without understanding; [have] also neglected their faith. And if one should keep or know all the conciliar laws, one would have to send even more printers into the world, and acquire life for the people longer. Such a great sea of such statutes is gathered together in time; but as it has been the stuff of men, 1) so it has also disappeared in time, without the pieces that hold the Holy Roman See; which alone are cast in Adamantum, and more firmly kept a thousand times than the Gospel of Christ. From what spirit this is done, everyone may well grasp.
30 To the twenty-first. Therefore, conciliæ, conciliæ: if they are the doctrines of men, they are no longer valid. So they are not conciliæ, they are tabernacles and schools of the Jews. I believe Christ, even St. Paul, his apostle, more than all conciliis, even if they were as much as sand on the sea and stars in the sky, who wants to have himself and all angels maledicted, if they do not present the word of God. Concilia are to deal with scriptures or with certain indications of the Spirit, as the first Concilium of the Apostles did, Acts 15:6 ff. 15, 6. ff. They will not prove for a long time that a council has the Holy Spirit, and that they sit in the place of the whole Christianity, as they whine and pretend; unless they lead the Scriptures and God's Word. They will not be believed for their fame and their own testimony. Their own praise stinks, says Solomon [Proverbs 27:2].
31. and that I say [it], it is of the greatest
1) Erlanger: "That". This variant is obviously a misprint, dusted off from the spelling we find in the Wittenberg edition: "thant".
Misfortune of one in Christendom the shameful damned delusion that one respects the Concilia, they have the Holy Spirit, so you are among twenty hardly one that needs the Scripture and proves the Spirit. They have seen that the first Concilio, walking in the Spirit, have become trustworthy, have now also pressed themselves into the same honor, looking at nothing at all, whether they are over a thousand miles unequal in life and spirit to the first holy Fathers in their Concilia. And as they preach their own lies under God's name and appearance of divine truth, so they also, under the name and title of the holy churches, their synagogues and tabernacles, give ulcers 2) to our wretched souls. Recently, as we come to market with the people, so we have to pay pepper and eat mouse dung.
32 To the second and twentieth. If there is nothing more to a concilio than an assembly of many who wear cardinals' hats, bishops' finials and berets, then one would also gather the wooden saints from the churches, put cardinals' hats, bishops' finials and berets on them, and say that it is a concilium, so that henceforth neither the Holy Spirit nor the Gospel would be needed in conciliis; also any painter and sculptor could well make a concilium. But what are they more than blocks and blocks, the unlearned, unspiritual cardinals, bishops, doctors, who make a carnival play for us with their hats, plates and berets, so that we take them for those whom they themselves would not like to be; and yet they have their clothes, their gestures, their statics, and frighten us with the saying of Christ [Luc. 10, 16]: "He who hears you hears me"; as if Christ had commanded them to say what they wanted. But he says [Matth. 28, 20.]: "Go and teach them what I have commanded you"; no doubt not what they want to invent.
But if any man should say, as some blame me, If there be no law of men, there ought not to be any temporal government; wilt thou then put down all authority? I answer, What is worldly government to do with the
2) The ulcer - the great swarm. Here it seems to mean: that which is swarmed; the innumerable false teachings.
3) Erlanger: City.
We 1) know that Paul and Peter commanded to keep the secular sword and laws, Rom. 13, 1. Tit. 3, 1. 1 Petr. 2, 13. But the secular government does not govern the conscience, but only acts in temporal goods. A stonemason must have a law that he may not take a cubit for half a cubit; a cobbler has a law that he may not make a child a man's shoes; yes, murderers have a law that the spoils be divided equally. What do such laws concern the spirit and conscience? So worldly authorities have a law that one should not harm another's property, honor and body, but they do not say that the conscience is well governed before God. But the pope and the spiritual setters, who travel with Lucifer across the sky, pretend that their thing is divine and makes one pious before God,' governs and leads the conscience right. God does not like that, he is a zealot. For in the consciences he wants to be alone and let his word alone rule, there should be freedom from all human laws. If now the pope, like the emperor, would let the consciences go, and would not punish further than the emperor, then there would be no need. But he wants to capture the consciences and make God's words his word, and he invents an eternal punishment and eternal reward for his commandments, which no emperor does. Therefore he is the final Christian, who sets himself above God, as St. Paul says [2 Thess. 2, 4], and breaks open the bridal chamber of Christ, and turns all Christian souls into whores.
34 O greatest of whoremongers, how far your wickedness and evil surpasses all words, all thoughts, all reason! For who can tell the consciences that he thus maddens, strangles and defiles with his commandments in all the world? This is called by St. Paul the right last effect of the supreme and worst devil Satan [2 Thess. 2, 9].
35 Let this be said enough of the doctrines of men; let it be firmly enough founded with scriptures, how they are to be avoided as the greatest calamity on earth. Now let us proceed to attack that for which this preface has been made, namely the secret confession of which all the world, and justly, complains. Want to
1) "we" is missing in the Erlanger.
Luther's Works, "d. XIX.
first see whether it was commanded by God or by men, and then teach us rightly. Until now, many have been concerned with the same question, and are said to have unchristianly carried money to the pope, where the fair would have started, which would be man's command. 2) Although the evil spirit has looked at it differently, he was more interested in it than in the pope's stinginess; otherwise he would have pricked it himself long ago.
The other part.
36 To the first. Here we ask the pope and all those who are his, from where they have the power to hear confessions of all Christians, and where God has commanded this. Come forward, dear friends, show the letter and seal of your office, and give an account, as St. Peter commanded you, saying [1 Ep. 3, 15], "You should be ready to show cause of your faith." They bring up, first, the saying of Christ, Matt. 8:4, when he cleansed the leper, saying, "Go, shew thyself to the priest, and offer thy sacrifice, as Moses commanded them." Here, they say, Christ commanded to present himself to the priest, that is, to confess his sin secretly to the priest. And although this is such a foolish gloss that it would be more cheaply ridiculed than refuted, let us nevertheless serve them and take their error from them. But they shall not be unwilling that the sheep should lift up the shepherds to teach, the disciples the master, the subjects the chief. The reversal is their fault. Because they are completely and utterly insane and perverse. If a blind man would see, and the leader of the blind would remain blind, I hope, the leader of the blind should pardon himself for his honor and mastery, and follow the seeing man, or be left as a senseless fool. The reversal is also not new. David, Ps. 119, 98. 99. 100., says: "You
2) In the old Walch and Erlangen editions, this reading of the old editions is resolved with: "that human commandment would be", which seems to us to give no proper sense; in the reading given by us, it would be construed thus: that which would be human commandment would have carried immeasurable money to the pope, if the fair had started and had not been disturbed by Luther's appearance against the selling of the forgiveness of sins.
3) Erlanger: blind leader...
You have made me wise above all my enemies by your commandment, so that I am always in line. I am wiser than all my masters, because I have to do with your testimonies. I am more understanding than the ancients, therefore I keep thy statutes."
(37) It is no wonder that fools become wise who keep the word of God, and wise men become fools who keep the doctrine of men; therefore, that we also know more than our pope, bishops, cardinals, priests and monks, they leave the word of God, the light of all creatures, and creep after the devil in the doctrines of men; these are vain darkness. Therefore God says, Hosea 4:6, to these same false ones: "Thou hast cast away from thee the knowledge of my words; therefore will I cast thee away again, that thou be not my servant. So it goes according to the 18th Psalm v. 27: "God turns away with the perverse."
38 Secondly. But is it honest, let us be silent, Christian, that one builds such misery into the world on such a loose foundation? such estimation, such fear, such tyranny, such outrage and violence? O Pabst, how do you and yours merit here! First of all, you do not want to be driven with any dark words, everything should be expressed clearly and actually, what should penetrate you, nevertheless you want to be uncaught. Why then do you urge us to confession with this saying, since there is not a word about confession, not a word about sins inside, but only: The cleansed should show himself to the priest? Item, was the same priest, Mosis priest in the old law, who has no power to forgive sin, because that is only given to the New Testament with the keys; it would have been cheaper the apostles absolved him.
39 But if you say that it means confession, you must prove the meaning. For someone else would like to take it to mean something else. Which one should I believe? Figures and interpretations do not prove anything, says St. Augustine. I will also give an interpretation, which should be closer than yours, and is this: There is no doubt that all the figures and [the] whole law of Moses point to Christ, as St. Paul says.
lus Rom. 3, 21. 22. 25. teaches. So the priest in the Old Testament means Christ, who alone is priest for us all. Now if we are cleansed by his faith, we are guilty of showing ourselves before him, that is, confessing that we are vain sinners to ourselves, and are righteous by his grace alone. Behold, the thanksgiving, the praise, the honor, the confession is signified by this figure, there all men are comprehended without distinction: for they are all sinners before God, and justified by Christ alone. This is the right meaning, which is based on faith, not on works, on Christ, and not on men.
40. to the third. Thus lies the saying. 1) Secondly, they use the saying of Solomon, Proverbs 27:23: "Thou shalt diligently know the face of thy cattle. From this they make such an investigation of consciences that there is no end nor rest; thus they gloss over: the face is called a conscience. Is this not a strange Latin and German? "Face" means the heart, and "to know" means to hear confession. But if someone does not want to confess, or does not confess purely, as often happens, how will you recognize his face? You must recognize it if you want to fulfill the commandment.
41. It must also be a strange God who commands you such things, which are not in your power, but in another's secret will. Where has he given such commandments more? Or would it not be an opinion, which because we have taken so free a power to gloss over, we would turn the saying around in such a way: You cattle shall make your face known with diligence, so that such a commandment may come from us to the confessors. As above the leper had to show himself, and the priest was not commanded to recognize all lepers, for it would have been difficult for him. Behold, confession and the whole priesthood stand on such fursleeves; nor do they want anyone to know the Scriptures, but they themselves alone, thinking that their thing stands on stronger pillars than heaven. But they do it so that no one can get behind the crude lies and the
1) Namely, the saying Matth. 8, 4, with which the papists want to prove secret confession, is defeated by what has been said.
Deception come. The light does not like lies; that is why it wants to speak alone and be right.
42 Fourthly. Nor are they so careful as to consider that confession, as they themselves teach, is a sacrament of the New Testament, and confession was not in the Old, and Solomon himself did not confess; nor could he confess because no keys were given. Therefore we want to hear the right understanding of the saying. Solomon teaches in the same place how every man should wait for his goods to be sufficient for him, see that he does not possess his neighbor's goods, since this life is short. Therefore let every man be content, not scratching and clawing, as if he would live here forever; and thus it is [Proverbs 27:23 ff], Thou shalt know the face of thy cattle, and set thine heart upon thy flock: for thou shalt not be a lord of the manor for ever, nor an overlord for ever and ever. The meadows are open, and the grass grows, and hay gathers on the mountains (that is, do not worry, do not rob, be content, yet grass and hay grow every day, the field is ever uncovered, how do you?), let the lambs give thee clothes, and the sheep the wages for the cultivation (that is, sell them and redeem money from them, so that thou mayest pay and build, not large houses, but the field), let the goat's milk be thy food in the house, and for the need of thy servants", that is, make milk, butter, cheese, eat of it, sell it and get thy need out of it.
(43) Behold, Solomon here teaches against covetousness and care, how a man ought to feed himself godly in temporal goods, and we have made a confession of it. But when he speaks of the face of the cattle, he means the appearance and form of the cattle. For every man knoweth his cattle before another, by the appearance of the cattle, whether they be red, white, small, great, few, or many. The Hebrew language calls such an outward form a "face" and sets it against the heart, saying: God sees and judges according to the heart and not according to the face, as men judge and see [1 Sam. 16, 7].
44. to the fifth. The third saying is Jacobi the Apostle, Jac. 5, 16, and reads thus:
"Confess 1) your sin one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be saved." Here we come to the New Testament. And indeed, here confession and sin are touched upon, as he says, "confess your sin." But he sets a strange confessor, that 2) is called, Alterutrum; he does not please the pope and papists at all. Alterutrum means one to another or to each other, and means all of us. From this it follows that the confessors should confess to the confessors, and that they are not only priests, bishops, and popes, but that every Christian is a priest, bishop, or priest, and the priest must confess to him. Before they admit this, they would much rather let the saying go and confess that he is not talking about secret confession. This is also true, although they led him at the first.
45. for Jacob means this: as a man, when he has offended God, is guilty of accusing himself against him and confessing his sin, so they will forgive him; as David says Psalm 32:6: "I have said, I will confess my sin against me to God, and thou hast forgiven me the iniquity of my sin." So too, each one should humble himself against his neighbor, confessing his sin beforehand if he has offended him, not insolently excusing himself. For this makes no peace, and is a vain hindrance to prayer. To 3) he wants to occur when he says: "You should pray for one another, that you may all be saved" [Jac. 5, 16.]. This you may not do, for you forgive one another, as the Lord's Prayer also teaches: "Forgive us as we forgive" 2c. [Now ye cannot forgive, but confess ye one another's trespasses, as he hath trespassed against him: that every man therefore may be ready to trespass against himself, that there may be peace, and that prayer be not hindered. In the same way, Christ teaches, Matth. 5, 23. 24, to first reconcile with one's neighbor before bringing the sacrifice to the altar.
46 The sixth. The fourth and main verse is Joh. 20, 22. 23. when Christ blew into the disciples and said: "Receive
1) Jenaer: Confess.
2) Wittenberger and Erlanger: "the".
3) In the old editions: "Das". Wittenberger and Erlanger: "Das will erfür kommen".
the Holy Spirit; whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you retain, they are retained." Here, here won. Here it is said: 1) If we are to forgive sin, we must know it. But how may we know them, if they be not told us? Here let us see in what lamentation and sweat they lead themselves above the saying. If there is a saying in the Bible against secret confession, it is this one.
47. (To the first.2) ) This saying says nothing of secret confession, nor of public confession. And where he compels secret confession, he also compels public confession of all sin. For here the priest might just as well dispute and say: If I should forgive, then you must confess; now I do not want to forgive secretly, but publicly, then you must also confess publicly. Thus our confession would be bound to his forgiveness; and, where he leads with forgiveness, the accompanying confession must also follow. Thus he would have the power to reveal the secrecy of all hearts, as if he were God himself, who alone wants to know the secrecy of hearts. But if the sentence does not press for public confession, it does not press for secret confession either. Therefore it is not true that in this saying they are given power to demand and make confession, and that confession is not bound to their forgiveness; but turn the page, and you will find it.
48 Forgiveness is tied to confession, and forgiveness should follow and be directed after confession. If I want to confess secretly, you owe me secret forgiveness.
1) Wittenberger and Erlanger: each.
2) These brackets are placed by us to distinguish the subsections from the main sections. Only in the Jena edition are they indicated, partly in the margin, partly in the text, so that they can be clearly recognized. To this "To the first" corresponds "To the other" under No. "VIII". Then follows "To the third" under "IX"; "To the fourth" under "X". In the second part of this writing, there are eighteen main sections; in the third part, thirty-one. In the Wittenberg edition, the designation of No. IX is missing. In contrast, in the old Walch and Erlangen editions, the differentiation of the sections is completely out of order. In the latter, the counting of the subsections stops at "Zum Achten. Zum Andern"; the main sections for the whole scripture, however, stop with "Zum Zehnten".
give. If I want to confess publicly, you are guilty of making a public confession. My confession is not at your discretion, but at mine. Absolution is in my right and not in yours. I have the right and freedom to demand it; you do not have the right to deny it, but to give guilt and need. Thus Christ made his rulers servants; thus thou turnest it back, and wilt make me a servant, reserving to thyself right and authority over my confession and absolution. Behold, this is a perverse thing.
49 The seventh. See now if this is not what the text gives; it does not say, "Come and confess, or go and confess your sins," but, "Whose soever sins you forgive, they shall be forgiven them." No more does the word penetrate, but that thou art guilty of forgiving the sin of him that desireth it, and art made a servant unto it. But the confessor is at liberty, and such forgiveness is promised that he may use it when, how, and where he wills. If he does not want it, you do not have to force him, because no one can nor should give anyone without his thanks and will. Absolution is a great gift of God. As for faith, no one can and should be forced, but hold the Gospel before everyone and exhort them to faith, but leave the free will to follow or not to follow. All sacraments should be free for everyone. Whoever does not want to be baptized, let it stand. He who does not want to receive the sacrament has his own power. So, whoever does not want to confess, also has power before God. See, so they have forced the sentence on confession, so 3) is the very one that makes confession free. Again, they have set the forgiveness free in their arbitrariness, so this very sentence compels them to absolve. What should not be the consequence of such a sacrilegious transgression of the Scripture of God, since the world is deceived and seduced by lies and human poetry?
50. VIII. 4) (On the other hand.) But is it not a shame that such a burden is laid upon all the world, and yet to such a great being not a few clear words may be applied?
3) Wittenberg and Erlangen: so he.
4) From here on, just like the old editions, we have used numerals for the hawptab divisions.
become? Do we have to help ourselves so lukewarmly and beggarly with such anguish glosses and distress speeches, when Christ has so much and so clearly expressed baptism, the sacrament and all that he wanted: and this essence of secret confession, almost the greatest thing in Christianity, should not have a single saying? Also, where shall we leave the holy fathers in the desert, who do not confess, nor receive the sacrament, and know nothing of the pope's law?
51 In addition, one finds in Ambrosia, Augustino, Hieronymo and their 1) equal fathers nothing publicly written about it, which would be miraculous, because otherwise they wrote so superfluously of all Christian things. One has written a book in St. Augustine's name de vera et falsa poenitentia, which in spiritual law and in Sententiis is certainly raised, and is less St. Augustine's than mine and yours. He also leads Augustinum in one place by name, and has been such a grossly unlearned head that he may present Christ's saying [Matth. 10, 32.]: "Whoever confesses me before men, him will I confess before my Father", as the reason for secret confession, and the like much more. It is a book for the pope and his papists, who are worth nothing better. A donkey should not eat figs, but thistles. But it has done much harm, and almost strengthened confession, so that I worry that his master is "in the lowest of hell" because of it, where he has not well atoned.
52 IX. (To the third.) About all this they speak against themselves. They say, If I forgive or bind up sin, I must know it. Which I do not know, I cannot forgive nor bind; therefore confession must be made. Here I ask, what does the pope do, when he lets himself be heard in his bulls through his apostles, that he forgives all sin, torment and guilt by name, the forgotten and unconscious sin, and leads the soul from mouth to heaven, out of hell, out of purgatory and out of all misfortune; and he cannot err, as he says? Your one 2) must lie and deceive; the pope or you. Kön-
1) instead of "their" should probably read "them".
2) "one" is Conjectur of the Jena edition instead of: one.
nce sins are forgiven that are unconscious and forgotten, do not press and smear, saying, I cannot forgive the sin, I must know it, and have lost the saying with confession.
(53) But if your mind is wrong, the pope deceives and misleads the world with his forgiving and leading to heaven. What do you want to say here? Behold, this is how it goes when one aligns human action, and then wants to strengthen it with divine scripture. But she does not let her brave beard be braided. She nimbly disgraces all who want to disgrace and defile her, as the wise man says. Therefore I conclude about you both: You lie; so the pope trusts and drives your none 4) right. You force confession with false glosses; so the pope may not forgive any unconscious or forgotten sin, and the truth remains urgent in the means between you, namely, that you must know and can solve only those sins that are confessed to you. But those that are not confessed to you, you do not need to know and solve.
54. X. (To the fourth.) Therefore it is not only wrong, but also a foolish disputation, that they say: the sins may not be forgiven, they must become known to them. For that would be an impossible thing, since no man can know all his sins, and the greater part is reserved for God alone, the lesser part is known, as the 19th Psalm v. 13 says: "Lord, who knows all his sin?" And Ps. 40, 13: "Evils have surrounded me, of which there is no number, and my sins have encompassed me, so that I have not been able to see; theirs is more than I have hair on my head, that even my heart has forsaken me" 2c.
55) But if thou sayest, Yea, the conscious after possible inquiry shall be confessed; I ask, Where wilt thou prove this? also where wilt thou take the aim, that so many simple-minded men may know how far they shall inquire, and what sin they shall confess or not confess? who shall tell any man which is daily, and which mortal sin?
3) casts - proves.
4) "none" is Conjectur of the Jena edition instead of "none".
When no doctor, no father, no saint has yet invented, known, or taught the same thing? And you want to drive the whole world into such uncertain trouble that they never know where they stand. Do you think that Christ's word teaches such a reeling and whirling of the hearts? If he wants to be and should be a certain solid rock [Matth. 16, 18. 1 Cor. 10, 4.], so that in his word everyone knows how it is with him, and does not go to and fro like the bulge on the sea, where there is no rest.
56-XI. But if someone should say: Yes, if the loosening is not at the priest's discretion, but he is obliged to loosen where he is asked to do so; but what do you say about binding? That is not at the discretion of the sinner, whether he wants to or not, so the priest may bind and banish him? Answer: I have said before that all the words of binding and loosing, set forth in the Gospel, do not penetrate further than to the public binding and loosing, which is now called the ban. Just as Christ himself, Matth. 18, 15-18, points out the binding and loosening of sins, which are first admonished secretly, then punished with the conscience 1) of the witnesses, and finally publicly accused and overcome before the crowd and the congregation. What a wholesome custom is now gone by our tyrants and seducers, pope, bishops, with their sticks 2) and executioners, the officials. In these, public sins, it is true that the power is with the congregation, or the priest instead of the congregation, to bind the sinner even without his will, and shall loose him if he desires it. But it does not follow that they may require the sin as they wish. Yes, it follows that here also the public sin must first be revealed 3) and known.
57 XII. But what is of secret sins no one can admonish, nor punish one another, much less publicly accuse and overcome. Therefore there is no power in the church to bind or loose them,
1) Conscience here stands in the meaning of "foreknowledge".
2) d. i. Stockmeister.
3) Wittenberger and Erlanger: apparently. The reading of the Jenaer is correct, because the contrast of "denying" is expressed, as the following paragraph indicates.
It is up to each person whether he wants to admonish, punish, accuse and confess himself. It is a very different thing to confess sin and to bind or loose sin. Christ's words speak neither of denying nor confessing; but of binding and loosing over the sins that are publicly denied or confessed. Now they want to make a confession out of the binding, that they have to create. In the same way they want to force and urge to do sin, so that they have to bind and loose; since it is just as hard if I argue: If I am to bind and loose, there must be sin; otherwise how can I bind or loose? Just as it seems to them, 4) if they argue: If I am to bind and loose, sin must be confessed. Therefore, as it does not follow: Thou shalt bind or loose, and sin must be confessed; so also it does not follow, Thou shalt bind or loose, and confess. But again it follows, If any man have sinned, thou mayest bind and loose him concerning it. So also: If someone has confessed or revealed his sin, you can bind and loose him. These are the words of Christ, and no more.
58 (XIII) I argue only that confession is not to be required, but is to be excluded. The keys are to do with sins, not with the heart or conscience, and are not to lock or unlock hearts or consciences, but heaven. They are not called keys of the heart or conscience, but keys of heaven.
59. Christ did not say to Petro, "I will give you the keys of the heart or conscience"; no, he kept such keys for him alone until the last day, as St. Paul says Rom. 2:16 and 1 Cor. 4:5; but so he says, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven" 2c. And John 20 does not say, "Whichever heart ye open, it shall be opened; which heart ye shut, it shall be shut;" but, "Whichever sins ye retain, they shall be retained." 2c. Let sin come before you bind or loose, do not seek it nor require it. A worldly
4) i.e. it seems to them to be a proof.
The judge is also responsible to punish the wicked and to redeem the pious; but for this reason he does not have to know or investigate all secret evil, but only what comes before him.
60. xiv. And what may be many words, if loosening and binding are so much in their power that no sin would be forgiven without their loosening, where would remain those whom they bind unjustly, who are certainly loose before God?
61 Again, what is the use of those whose sins they do not want to bind, nor do they want to bind, even publicly untie sins that are bound before God? Should therefore the saying of John compel that all they loose be bound, all they bind be bound, as the pope and bishops often presume? Fools, therefore, that everything is bound that they bind, loose that they loose, and yet they confess how they often loose that which is not loose, bind that which is not bound. Therefore we leave it at that, that there are two ways to make sin known. One, by witnesses publicly overcome before the assembly, which Christ teaches, Matth. 18, 15-18. This is necessary, and also sufficient for the keys and spiritual power. The other is done willingly, freely, unaccused and uncoerced; it is also the best and wholly wholesome. For this reason, it also wants to stand uncoerced and unenforced in every man's free will and to be uncaptured by man's laws.
62. xv. Therefore, one should not condemn those who confess their secret sins only to God, His saints, or whomever they wish, and do not confess to the priest, if they otherwise do so in right repentance, faithfulness, and belief. 1) One should also not be misled by the horrible examples that some dream preachers have invented about the damnation of the unconfessed, in order to frighten the people and to chase them into their money net. St. Paul proclaimed all this, how the final Christ would deceive the world with false signs and wonders by the help of the devil, that now it is almost necessary to judge not by signs, but by the clear Scripture of God. Abraham, Luc. 16, did not want to grant the rich man that Lazarus or a dead man would come to his brothers, but instructed them in the Scriptures,
1) Wittenberg and Erlanger: they.
said [Luc. 16, 29.], "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear the same." Nor do all the Scriptures say much of the Dead Revelation, as these examples pretend. Believe thou surely, if they had to give as much to confession as they take from it, they would well leave thee impetuous, yea, push thee from it by force.
63 XVI But what is to be done here first of all? That before Christ commanded to forgive and to bind up sins, he breathed into them, saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost: and whosoever sins ye shall forgive, they are forgiven them," John 20:22, 23. Here it is concluded that no man can forgive sin, except he have the Holy Ghost. For the words are clear and do not depart. It does not help to say that this is an article of John Hus or Wiklef, and to condemn to Costnitz. It is not enough to condemn; it is necessary to answer. It is also not enough that Matth. 23, 3. says: "What they say to you, do; but according to their works you shall not do." For this is said of preaching, to which office Christ sent the apostles, and did not blow into them, nor yet give them the Holy Ghost, as he does here.
64 Where are now the keys of the pope? I am afraid that they must fall away from him here without his thanks, and it must be known that he alone holds them in his shield with all iniquity, so that it is clearly stated here that he does not have the keys, because he has the Holy Spirit. Therefore one should paint (I know well what) in the shield of the pope and tear out the 2) keys. The coat of arms is of another man, because the pope is. But again: If I should not now have forgiveness of my sin before, the confessor would have the Holy Spirit-and no one can be sure of the other, whether he has the same -, when would I be sure of my absolution and get over a calm conscience? It would be like before.
65, XVII Answer that I have put on, that one may have a right reason for this thing. There is no doubt that no one binds or forgives sin, but he alone who has the Holy Spirit so surely that you
2) "the" is missing in the Erlanger.
and I know how these words of Christ convince all here. But this is no one, because the Christian church, that is, the assembly of all believers of Christ; it alone has these keys, you should not doubt. And whoever usurps the keys is a real sacrilegious thief, be it the pope or anyone else. Of the same church everyone is sure that it has the Holy Spirit, as Paul after Christ and all Scripture abundantly prove, and is written in the shortest possible way in the faith, when we say: I believe that there is a holy Christian church. It is holy because of the Holy Spirit, which it certainly has; therefore no one should receive absolution from the pope or bishop, as if it were they who absolve. God forbid the pope's and bishop's absolution, of which the world is now full. They are the devil's absolution.
(66) But so shalt thou do, as Christ saith, Matt. 10:41: "He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet hath a prophet's reward. And he that receiveth a justifier in the name of a justifier hath a justifier's reward." So if a stone or wood could absolve me in the name of the Christian church, I would accept it. Again, if the pope in the name of his power put me in the highest choir of angels, I would plug both ears and consider him the greatest blasphemer. He is a servant of the keys, like all other priests; but they alone are of the church. A lord may suffer his servant to bear his coat of arms, but he shall not suffer the coat of arms to be his in the sight of all servants and of all men. So the Christian church gives the keys to the pope and commands in its name to use them, but it does not let them be for that reason.
67. XVIII. Therefore our faith is thus ordered, that the article: Forgiveness of sin, must stand after the article: A holy Christian church, and before the 1): I believe in the Holy Spirit. That it may be known how without the Holy Spirit there is no holy church, and without a holy church there is no forgiveness of sins.
1) namely, before the": a holy Christian church must stand the article: "I believe in the Holy Spirit."
sins. So it is not true that the pope has the keys, but only the church, and not he, but she alone binds and absolves, in which he serves her, and all priests. From this it follows that the pope in his office should be a servant of all servants, as he boasts and yet does not do, that even a child in the cradle has more right to the keys, and all who have the Holy Spirit, than he. That is enough of the saying.
68) So we have that the secret confession of the pope has no power at all to set nor to demand, and his reasons are false and deceitful, as St. Peter, 2 Petr. 2, 1, said of him and of 2) his own: "There were false prophets among the people of the old marriage. So also among you will be false teachers, who with false imaginary words will rob you of money." What else are false fictitious words than such foul loose grounds of papal tyranny, so that he does harm to everyone, deprives the world of its money, and leads all souls who follow him to the devil. Now, what we think of the sentence and the secret confession, we want to hear now.
The third part.
69. I consider secret confession, like virginity and chastity, a very deliciously salutary thing. Oh, all Christians should be sorry that secret confession does not exist, and thank God from the bottom of our hearts that it is permitted and given to us. But it is annoying of the pope that he makes an emergency stable out of it and writes it with a commandment, just as he does with chastity. His manner is no different than that he despises everything that God has commanded and lets it go; but what God has not commanded or has only advised, that he makes into commandments, sets himself above God with it, demands more than God, as he is the end-Christian and should do, so that he has something to create in the church above God. And if there were no other indication that he is the right end-Christian, that would be enough for everyone to take hold of how he lets God's commandment be carried out in all the world, and
2) "von" is missing in the Wittenberg and the Erlanger.
drives only his own commandment. And may not be excused that he could not help that other people are evil.
70) If he can do his commandment, why can't he also do 1) God's commandment? Or does he let God's commandment go, why doesn't he let his go too? Yes, his commandment brings money, honor and pleasure, God's commandment brings poverty, shame and cross. But if it is too much for him to do God's word in all the world, why does he subject himself to it and not let others do it either? Yes, why does he not do it at his court with his own? Oh, all that is in the pope and the papacy, from the top of the head to the heels, is lying and deceiving.
71 II. We put here for 2) a reason to the first the saying of St. John the Evangelist in his legend: Non placent Deo coacta servitia, it does not please God the forced or unwilling services. And if the same legend did not say this, all the Scriptures have it in them. St. Paul, 2 Cor. 9, 7, uses gentler words, does not want to command, but to give advice. At last he says: "Let each one do as he intends, but not out of unwillingness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And to his disciple Philemon [vv. 8, 14]: "Though I have confidence that I command thee these things, yet would I do nothing without thy counsel; that thy good work might not be compelled, but willing."
72 Christ also says John 14:23, 24: "He who loves me keeps my word. But he who does not love me does not keep my word." Therefore the Christians are called free or willing in the Scriptures, Ps. 110, 3: "Let them be your people who are free and willing." And St. Peter 1 Petr. 2, 16.: "Ye shall be as free men, yet not needing the same liberty for a covering of wickedness, but shall be servants of GOD." Christ also says Joh. 8, 35: "That the servant does not remain forever in the house, but the son remains forever in it"; therefore the son serves freely, the servant serves under compulsion. This is also the intention of God's commandment, when he says
1) "also" is missing in the Erlanger.
2) Erlanger: hiefür.
Matth. 22, 37. from Deut. 6, 5: "You shall love your God with all your heart, with all your life, with all your mind" 2c.
73 (III) The other reason for this is to note the difference that God's words are threefold. The first are commandments, which require what we should and must do if we are to be saved. The other part are faithful counsels and good suggestions, which we do not have to do if we are to be saved, but which are in our free will, as there is virginal and witch chastity. Item: Whoever desires to be a bishop, that is, a preacher of the Word of God, and to put his life into it, as Isaiah did, Isa. 6:8, when God said, "Who will go? Whom shall I send forth?" he answers, "Behold, here am I; send me forth." Paul says 1 Tim. 3, 1: "Whoever desires the office of bishop (that is, to preach the divine truth) desires to do a good work," for he will overcome the enmity of all the world.
But the bishops who now rule are not bishops, but like the painted and wooden bishops. For none of them is engaged in the office and work of a bishop, namely, preaching: not preaching, but preaching the Word of God. That is why they are also the lost bunch, the devil's own, even if they would do miracles. The third part is the divine promise, in which he does not demand anything, but only offers his hand, gracious help and consolation. We must remember these three parts and the difference between them 3). Commandment, counsel and promise.
75 IV. Now behold, though he wills to have his commandment kept, and requires it of every one, yet he wills not, and wills not, those who keep it unwillingly, out of compulsion, 4) fear of chastisement, and not of their own free will, as the first Psalm [v. 2.] says: "Blessed is the man whose will is in God's statutes." Do not say: blessed is he that his hand, foot, mouth is in it; for all this may be done without heart and will. If then he will not do his commandment with unwillingness and constraint, he shall be blessed.
3) "wohl" is missing in the Wittenberg and in the Erlanger.
4) In the old editions: Gezwang.
How much more will he not like it if someone is forced to follow his advice and promises, which he does not demand!
It is far more grievous to be compelled by his commandments than by his covenants and promises. Take a similitude of this: If a rich man promised and pledged himself to give all the poor a good garment for a day, which none but each would be useful for himself; But they would not, and you fool, out of your good opinion, thought to help the cause, urging and forcing them to receive it, and yet knowing that they would not keep it, but throw it into the corner; what, think you, wretched clever one, that you would do for a service to the rich man, whom you so foolishly wanted to help his goods? He would think you foolish or his greatest enemy, for the saying is true: You cannot give to someone without his will, but you can take from him without his gratitude.
77. V. Behold, so you foolish, raging pope also do with your sect, you worst enemies of God. For secret confession is an open treasure of grace, in which God holds out and offers His mercy and forgiveness of all sin, and is a blessed, rich promise of God, which no one compels or forces, but entices and calls everyone. So you plump along with your iniquity, and force all the world to such goods, and know and see that they are not yet eager for them, neither do they take them, nor do they keep them. What else do you do here but take God for a fool? who is to spill his goods for the sake of your compulsion, you bring before him many heaps to whom he is to give, and there is no one who desires his.
78) O what abuses 1) of the noble and precious goods you are directing, you wretched pope, that I may say that there is no more sinful and damning day in the year than Easter Day; and if the whole year were like a carnival, and there were dancing and drinking every day, there would not be so many and great sins as are now happening in the whole world.
1) Erlanger: Abuse.
Most holy time of fasting, before in the week of martyrdom and paschal feast. That everything is reversed, which we call the holiest time, which is the most unholy; which is nobody's fault but the Pope's, with his mad, sacrilegious, infernal, diabolical commandments.
For all those who are reluctant to confess and go to the Sacrament and do not desire from the heart, it would be better for them to fall into grave public sin. They dishonor God's grace and make a mockery of it. Now there are very few of them who go out of their own devotion and desires, where the nonsensical devil's apostle, the pope, does not force such things with his commandment. Thus the whole world sins grievously against the pope, and he is also guilty of all the sins that are committed herewith, so that St. Paul said in 2 Thess. 2:3 that he is a "man of sins and a child of perdition"; because he heaps sin and perdition in all the world against Christ, who is a man of grace and a child of salvation, that he has caused grace and blessedness in all the world. Therefore he is called Christ, and the pope Antichristus; that is in German a Widerchrist, who does the same thing contrary, but under the name of Christ, whose governor he boasts.
(80) Behold, these are the abominable prophecies, wherein it is proclaimed how the bishops and priests shall give the holy sacraments to sows and unreasonable beasts, Matt. 7:6. Do you think that these things are said to be given to natural sows? No, they are the sour hearts, which are not yet desirous of the sacraments and still have a desire to sin, and yet must receive the sacraments and confess without their thanks and will. These are the swine before whom the pope and papists so carelessly throw our high treasures and comfort of the sacraments, that it would not be a miracle if our heart were to burst into a thousand pieces if it thought only of the wretched pope, the arch-sinner and arch-deceiver.
(81) VII. But do you say: If the secret confession should go away, then many evil people would become, who now take offense at the confession, and it would be considered that the confession is an annual reformation of Christianity. O and ah, Lord God, the reformation! Do you
But, dear man, how can you become pious if unwilling people are forced to go to God's sacraments? If one could make all the world blessed, one should not spill the divine sacraments in front of one person. > Yes, if piety stood in the way of going to the altar, you would also make a sow and a dog pious. Truly, he who is willing and cheerful needs no commandment; he who is unwilling and unconcerned helps neither commandment nor compulsion, but only makes it worse.
Here the pope's office and diligence should be practiced, so that the people would be willing and happy to do so, and no commandment would be necessary. Now he exaggerates the same effort, creates good days for him and his people, wants to do it with commandments, and is such a foolish commandment that it is a special plague of God that human reason has allowed itself to be blinded in this way and has not seen the unscrupulous 1) words in it. He commanded all Christians, male and female (perhaps he was worried that there might be Christians who were neither male nor female), when they came to their senses, to confess all their sins once a year to their own priest; whoever did not do so should not be buried in the churchyard. Help God, how terrible is the punishment of the most holy father! . What would I do to him if I were not buried in the churchyard with Christ, all the apostles and martyrs? Perhaps the roof of the church would not drip on my grave. O great pity! That God punishes you boys. How do you raise your voices when there is nothing at all, and open the mouths of the people with such lazy grimaces.
83. VIII. In addition to the two little words: "all his sin" and "his own priest", help God, what misery has been caused, how has one fallen for it, how have the wretched consciences been driven to impossible things, to confess all sin, what a torrent of books has that one little word omnium made! If the Holy Spirit had said it, it would have fallen into disrepair long ago, as all his words have fallen into disrepair.
1) i.e. clumsy. Erlanger: unschicklichen.
2) Erlanger: like, like.
the pope said from the devil, it floats up and tortures all the world, so that by virtue of this noble commandment also the young children and innocent must confess, if they want to remain otherwise male or female; he would cut them out perhaps, according to this serious 3) commandment, which rises, omnis, "all", no one undressed, whether he already has nothing to confess.
84 Item, what a pity has arisen between the parish priests and mendicant orders over the word proprio sacerdoti [the own priest, without that they have not murdered themselves! What else of hatred, envy, venom, anger, malice, quarrels, strife, resentment has yielded! O what a fine game this has been for the devil so far! He thought, I have given them a right law, I have put the little words as I wanted it. Thus, even today, there is a dispute as to who is proprius sacerdos, whether it is the priest, the chapel, the sexton, the monk or the begiuen 4); nevertheless, we must confess in the meantime. Behold, this is a piece of the Reformation, made out of this law.
85 IX. Therefore, the pope and his people should let this be his work: to appear, preach orally, and reproach the people with the fate and harm of sins and God's judgment; besides, to praise and extol the sacraments of divine grace, to preach the same without ceasing, and thus to deter the people from sins and to kindly incite them to the sacraments, so that they, moved by their harm and benefit, would willingly come. Then they would be pleasing to God and would recognize their sin and God's grace rightly; that would make them true Christians.
Therefore, confession should remain free for everyone and its benefits should be preached in addition to 6) the sins of misfortune. Whoever comes, comes; whoever does not come, remains outside. As I would counsel and praise virginity and chastity, but I would leave them free, not forcing anyone from the conjugal state.
3) Thus the Erlangen. In the Wittenberg and in the Jena: first.
4) In the Jena: Beginnen; Wittenberg: Begynen. This refers to the Beginnen, a monastic order, mostly nuns, who were engaged in dressing the dead.
5) "and" is missing in the Wittenberg and in the Erlanger.
6) d. i. of the same.
Item, I wanted to preach faith and baptism, but not force anyone to do so, but accept all who come to it voluntarily. Item, I wanted to preach the sacrament of the altar grace, but still leave free, no one to force. So I would praise confession most highly (as no one can praise it enough), but not force anyone to do it. Behold, these would be papal, episcopal, spiritual offices; so did the apostles and ancient fathers. Believe surely, whom you do not bring here with this, you will not bring here blessedly with commandments and necessities; and I will show the cause grossly.
87. X. First, the misfortune that is touched happens. If someone goes to confession unwillingly and with a forced heart, that God's word and promise is spilled in vain; just as if you poured good malvasia into a barrel that would be full of yeast to the top. For the divine grace seeks and demands lively, hungry, eager, thirsty, desiring hearts, as Mary sings [Luc. 1, 53.]: "He has satisfied with goods the hungry." Therefore, he who goes to confession purely out of commandment and need and (as they say) out of obedience to the church, not out of desire and longing for grace, may not do so without harm. 88 For this reason my faithful advice is: Let each one examine himself beforehand as to why he wants to confess. If he does so only for the sake of the commandment, and his heart does not struggle and sigh for the help of divine grace, let him remain free of it, and do not let Pope err with his commandment, until he feels hungry and eager for divine help, and becomes fundamentally hostile to sin. God likes that one submits to him. He also dislikes and punishes horribly. He likes it when one heartily desires help and grace; he dislikes it when it happens out of necessity, commandment and without the desire for help. But now it is to be feared that very few confess during Lent out of such desire. For if they did it out of desire for help, they would also confess without commandment apart from the fast, paying no attention at all to the fast, commandment, time or place. But since they never do this, and would rather fast, it is a sign that they confess out of compulsion by papal commandment. This is no different from being driven into all accidents.
89. XI. Secondly, there is the misfortune that follows from all other human laws, of which there are three. 1) The first is a false evil conscience; the second is a false good conscience. The third is idolatry. Do you ask how this happens? I will tell you. If you obey the commandments of men, you must keep them, but your conscience is already caught. For if you transgress, your conscience says as soon as you have sinned, and yet it is not true. For as the commandment is false, so also is the conscience false. And it happens to you (as they say) that you are afraid of the star of your own eyes. For if you firmly believe that the wolf is behind the stove, even though he is not there, yet he is there for you, who do and drive as if he were there.
Behold, such scourging 2) and scavenging is all that the pope does in the world, and only afflicts Christian consciences with his vain monkey commandments. As if you think it is sin, if you do not fast 3) an apostle's evening 4) it is surely sin. Not that there is sin, because God has not commanded it, but that you and your conscience believe it to be sin. Then God judges according to such a conscience, for as you believe, so it happens to you before God. Which conscience and sin is not God's, but the great scourge of the papal law, which thou knowest as if it were nothing, as it truly is nothing in itself, 5) there is no sin in it, whether thou fastest or eatest. If thou fearest the plucking in the hemp, it eateth thee; if thou fearest not, it doeth thee no harm. Behold, thus the pope plays with our wretched consciences and dreadful corruptions, as if it were a child's game, which one shames with cleaning and robbing 6); and yet he wants to be the most holy father and Christ's governor. That is, as methinks, the sheep of Christ pastured.
91. XII. This is a piece of the wrong
1) Jena's marginal gloss: The misfortune of forced confession is threefold.
2) "Scheuchter" and immediately following "Scheuel", that which causes shyness, fear, fright. From this the verb "shy" - to scare, to make shy, to frighten.
3) "you" is missing in the Erlanger.
4) The evening before an apostle's day.
5) "nothing" is missing in the Jena.
6) Robunten will also probably be some kind of scourer.
evil conscience. Again, if you believe that you are pleasing to God by keeping His commandments, and you think that you will be righteous and gain merit by doing so, your conscience is false, and your faith is corrupt; you are like a man in a dream, as Isaiah writes (Cap. 29, 8], who thinks he eats and drinks; when he awakens, he is still empty and hungry. Behold, thus the pope with his own is a dream preacher, fooling our conscience into thinking that there is righteousness; and is no more behind than if someone persuades you that pennies are Rhenish good florins.
This is the greatest juggler that has come on earth, and the evil spirit so wantonly atones for and satiates his long accumulated hatred by such pernicious jugglery in such serious matters through the pope on wretched Christendom. If he thus gave his commandment, that he would leave the consciences free and admit that they would keep free whoever wanted to, then the matter would not have a ride. But he does not want them to be less than God's commandment. And there shall be such a conscience that he who keeps them shall be righteous before God. That is to trample faith (which alone makes one pious and of good conscience before God) underfoot, and to erect in its place such a falsely dreamed-up, illusory conscience; that is the devil himself with all his malice and mischievousness. Therefore, the Pabst's regiment is like the work of children, who are frightened with false pots and lured with pennies.
From this then follows idolatry, that is: When thou hast such a false conscience of dreamed-up sins and piety, thy heart is no longer in confidence of divine grace, but in presumption of such works. This presumption is directed in you to the idol of your own good works, taught by the pope and his law; on these you rely, which you should do only on God. For if you did not rely on them, you would not 1) feel so
1) We assume that this correction "you yourself" at this point is intended by the Jena edition, but that a new printing error has crept into the list of printing errors on the last page of the first volume, in that the previous correct place has been designated as a printing error. In the editions: so would not.
2) and cling to them, but walk freely, do and leave them as you see fit.
94. so the pope is the god of all the world, as Paul says 2 Thess. 2, 4: "He will exalt himself above all the words and service of God." Faith is the right service of God; which he disturbs and does the work of his laws instead of it, so that our conscience pays attention to his laws and not to faith. Behold, therefore God would not have His own commandment fulfilled, for by faith alone, that is, confidence and reliance on His divine grace, that the works of His commandments should not become our idol and teach us presumption, but that His grace alone, and He Himself, should be our presumption, defiance and comfort, that is, to have true worship and God. Now notice from this why Paul calls the pope, v. 3, "a man of sin and a son of perdition," since 3) he heaps such a false conscience into all the world, thereby corrupting faith and filling all hearts with idolatry.
See, this is how it is with confession and the sacrament. If you do not confess to the fasts, as the pope says, you think it is a sin, but it is not. But if you confess, you think you have done well, and are thereby pious before God as an obedient child, and this is also not true. Who makes faith and such a conscience for you, but the pope with his law? For if his law were not, you would not have faith and conscience. Now such faith cannot stand with Christian faith, which is not based on what we do, but on what Christ does, and holds that man is pious because Christ has done everything for him, and that his works from now on are only the free consequence and fruit of such faith and piety.
96 For this reason, my faithful advice is that a Christian man should not go to confession or to the sacrament during Lent and Easter, thinking: "Behold, because a man, the Pope, has commanded this, I will not do it for this very reason, and if he does not do it, I will not do it.
2) Erlanger: him.
3) Wittenberger and Erlanger: that.
I would do it, but I will do it another time, since he has not commanded it, if and as my free desire and devotion moves me. And will do it therefore, that I be not accustomed to men's commandment, and be afraid of them, or learn to rely on such works, and be comforted, lest my faith and allegiance to God's grace be hurt.
If you want to confess and receive the sacrament at that time, make sure that you do not consider his commandment higher than the manure in front of you on the street, because you are not forced by papal laws and the need of your conscience, but because you want to do it of your own free will for the good and salvation of your soul. I say to my soul, whoever does not free his conscience from the infernal tyrant, the pope, cannot keep such a great commandment without damaging his faith. I do not refuse to keep them, but with a free conscience I will keep them, so that I do not seem to become pious and unpious by them; as if I would otherwise take hold of the head to serve the pope, or do something else, since no conscience is attached to it.
98. xv. Do you say: How shall one resist the sins? Answer: How do you defend yourself now? What is the use of confession now? Behold, how many mend their ways after Easter, and yet all must confess. Such confession is only pretense and pretense, since nothing follows, and, as Solomon says [Proverbs 25:14], great wind and clouds, since no rain follows.
There are two ways to prevent sins. The first is by the secular sword; there are gallows, wheels, fire and all the other things that are needed to keep the peace from public offenders. The other is spiritual, which Christ instituted Matt. 18:15-20, and reads thus: "If your brother sins against you, go and punish him between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have won your brother. If he does not hear you, take to yourself one or two, so that in the mouths of two or three witnesses all the testimonies may stand. If he does not hear them, tell the congregation. If he does not hear the congregation, consider him as a publican and a Gentile. For I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.
What you solve on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Further I say unto you: Where two of you are one on earth, concerning which they will ask, it shall be given them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in their behalf."
100 O that this saying were not in the Gospel, it would be for the pope! For here Christ gives the keys to the whole church and not to St. Peter. And the same saying in Matth. 16, 18. 19. also belongs here, when he gave the keys to St. Peter instead of the whole church. For in this 18th chapter the Lord himself glosses over to whom he gave the keys in the past 16th chapter in St. Peter's person. They are given to all Christians, not to St. Peter's person. And the above-mentioned saying John 20:22, 23 should also be added to this: "Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they shall be forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they shall be retained. Three sayings of one opinion, so that Christ has instituted the Christian order to punish sin, that there is no need nor use of the pabst's law for this.
According to this order, in any parish or community where someone has publicly sinned, he shall be punished by his neighbor as a brother; then he shall be punished properly with more witnesses; and finally he shall be publicly accused and convinced in the church during mass, according to the Gospel, before the priest and everyone and the whole community. If he then wanted to mend his ways, he had to pray for him in unison, as the Lord teaches here, and he was promised an answer. If he did not want to be put out of the church, and no one would have anything to do with him, then the Lord is called "to be bound. And this is also rightly put under the ban. The apostles used this method, and after them the bishops for a long time, until the abomination of Rome rose up and trampled all this underfoot with the whole gospel.
102] Therefore our bishops, like the idols of oil and the monkeys of the mouth, as Zacharias calls them [Cap. 10, 2. 11, 17.], are now sitting in public in all places tabernacles, where gluttony and all kinds of vice, swearing, fornication, murder, and
There are common women's houses, there sit public usurers, adulterers; there they see such exuberance of court with clothes, that it cannot be said; in short, the whole world and all classes are publicly naughty. What do they do? They ride beautiful stallions and wear golden pieces, hold courts, or if they are completely holy, they hold mass and pray their seven tides. 1)
But they help to strengthen such sin with their silence, yes, they only increase holidays for it, so that many sins happen through their help. The wretched people still think they are bishops, want to bring it back with reading horas, holding masses, pencils and then let it be done with secret confession. Great, great, great everything! What good would it be if a bishop said a hundred thousand masses a day? What would it be if he founded all the churches in the world and let this order of Christ stand and perish? He is appointed bishop or pastor to prevent such sin and to administer such order of Christ. This is his other office after preaching. Yes, if it were interest to oppress the poor people; there one could banish, since there is no sin. Woe, woe to all bishops and spiritual rulers!
104 (XVII) Behold, where this Christian order was, there would also be Christians, where otherwise there are vain Christian names and the worst heathen; there much sin and cause would be avoided; there would be little or no need of secret confession. But because we despise Christ's order and do our own human fancy, and make of the public confession a secret one, what wonder is it that Christ should also leave us again and give us into our own doing, as it is now, that God may have mercy! Yes, this would take effort and work, and not one bishop would want to rule over two cities, much less the pope over all the world. Therefore the devil taught them to keep the title and appearance of episcopal status, but to renounce the office, to put themselves to good rest, to put the matter into written laws and commandments, so that each one may drive himself to good.
105 Our Junkers and Spiritual Lords
1) d. i. the horns oauonloas.
They have to rule the world, read the interest books and preserve and increase the goods of the churches; they have a lot to do, the poor hard-working people, to wait for such pomp and splendor that Christ cannot send order into their being. Therefore they may go where they go, but they are bishops, just as the painted saints in churches are saints. Therefore all the sin and disorder of the world is nobody's fault, for the bishops and popes must also bear it as their own sin, so that I worry that whom God now makes a bishop, he has already given to the devil for his own. But let it go; the people do not hear and do not believe, they must experience it themselves. God wants them to be alone!
106. XVIII. Now let us act and teach the secret confession, so that we may blessedly use it. And first of all, as has been said, if you do not want to confess the secret sin out of a free heart, then only let it stand; you are bound to it by the priest's laws until devotion arrives. Otherwise, you will run to the Sacrament with the terrible dishonor of your soul, which you are not able to do because of such unwillingness. But confess to your God with David, Ps. 32, 5: "I have said, I will confess my unrighteousness against me to my God; and you have forgiven me the iniquity of my sin. I have opened my sin unto thee, and my iniquity have I not hid from thee."
In this way, all the saints had to confess in the Old Testament and afterwards up to the pope's laws, just as the same David in the same psalm follows the previous two verses 2) and says: "For the same (sins) all the saints (that is, all men who live justified by grace) will ask you in due time", that is, when he finds himself guilty and realizes the sins. Now, if the saints, through secret confession before God, have been saved without revelation to their priests, why should anyone be so insolent as to deny Heaven to one who has not confessed all secret sins to his priest? without any Scriptural reason, out of purely human conceit, impose such a heavy burden? Let it be said that
2) d. i. lets follow.
We are content to praise and love the same confession and gladly grant it, but not in such a way that those who want to confess some secret sin to God alone and not to men are scolded as heretics and assigned to the devil. For anyone who is to be scolded as a heretic and condemned must be shown a clear statement that he has sinned against and does not want to be rebuked, which cannot be done in this confession.
But that we willingly and gladly confess, two causes should provoke us. The first, the holy cross, is the shame and dishonor that a man willingly exposes himself before another man and accuses and ridicules himself. This is a delicious piece of the holy cross. Oh, if we knew what punishment such willing redness to be ashamed would incur and how a gracious God made it that man would so destroy and humiliate himself in his honor, we would dig the confession out of the earth and fetch it over a thousand miles.
All of Scripture testifies to how God is gracious and kind to the humble. Now humility is nothing else than to be destroyed and put to shame. But no one can be brought to ruin except with the exposure of his sins. Humility in garments and vesture is nothing. I also hope that since the bloodshed of the martyrs in Christendom has ceased, and the Christian church cannot be without martyrs, that God has used the pope in place of the pagan emperors to torture and crucify his saints by such laws, and thus has made the pope's tyranny and outrage benefit those who willingly suffered and bore it. However, they will have been few, as the martyrs were also few. For the greater part will have been corrupted by such tyrants, who did not know how to use them as they did the laws of the pope for good, and did not suffer them as a violence and an outrage; so that their consciences were caught and yet unwilling.
110.XX. But this does not excuse the pope that someone is useful to his wickedness.
1) "one" is missing in the Wittenberg and "i" in the Erlanger.
needs it. For the fact that Augustine ever became more learned and better through the heretics' disputes did not help the heretics; nor did those who, seduced by the heretics, did not like to receive such improvement from it. That the martyrs, like Christ, have made the persecution of the Jews, emperors, and pagans useful to them, they [that is, the persecutors] have enjoyed nothing - are therefore not to be praised; nor are those who have fallen from the faith by it, and have not also used the same persecution in a useful way, are also improved nothing by it. .
(111) Therefore, to those who have been willing to disgrace themselves in confession, the tyranny of the pope has been a useful persecution for humility, grace, and salvation; but to others, an abominable cause of sins and ruin. So it is still: Whoever is so skilled that he willingly humbles himself and does not want to be destroyed, the law of the pope does not harm him: he does not do it for the sake of his law, but for the sake of God. But those who do it unwillingly and for the sake of the Pabst, to them it is harmful and corrupt.
Therefore, let us torture ourselves, because we have time, and eradicate sin with a little effort and a short time. There is no fasting, no prayer, no indulgence, no pleading, no suffering ever so good as this willing shame and dishonor, in which man becomes truly humble in the 3) reason of being, that is, of grace. And would God that it were a custom to confess publicly before all the world all secret sins, as Augustine did. O God, how grace-filled people we should quickly become, since otherwise we would never be able to live a strict life!
And what is it that we are so almost ashamed before some man, when at death (which is not long) we have to endure such shame before God, all angels and devils, since it will be a thousand times more difficult; which we all with this little shame before one man may easily avoid? I also do not know if he has a right living faith.
2) Erlanger: faithful.
3) "im" is missing in the Erlanger.
I have no one who is willing to suffer so much, or to go through such suffering, that he is disgraced before a man, and does not want to bear such a small part of the holy cross, since every Christian must bear a cross if he is to be saved and his faith proven. So here no suffering is a suffering of the cross, but only the shame and disgrace that he (like Christ) is considered with the sinners [Is. 53, 12].
For the reason that I reject the pope's laws of confession, I do it for the sake of those who do not want to bear such a cross and do not want such irritations; he should leave them unchallenged and not drive them to further sin. For they are vain left thieves and suffer in vain, yes, they only sin more inside, as the left thief also did [Luc. 23, 39. f.]. One should only provoke, not drive; entice, not force; strengthen, not oppress; comfort, not frighten with confession and all other sufferings: freely, willingly and gladly one should confess, teach and make; if one cannot do this, then one should also leave commandment and driving in place. As to torture, suffering and death, one should incite, entice, strengthen and comfort. Whoever cannot or will not do this, should leave off his oppression, coercion and terror. It is all too urgent and self-inviting.
The other cause and stimulus for willing confession is the precious and noble promise of God in the four proverbs Matth. 16, 19: "What you will dissolve shall be loosed", Matth. 18, 18: "What you will dissolve shall be loosed", Joh. 20,1) 23.: "Whose soever sins ye shall forgive, they shall be forgiven them", Matth. 18, 19.20.: "Where two are one with another on earth, whether they desire it or not, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in their behalf." Whoever is not moved by such sweet and comforting words must of course have a cold faith and be a loose Christian.
(116) For although each one may confess to God himself and be secretly reconciled to God, he has no one to pronounce judgment on him, so that he can be reconciled to God.
1) Here the Erlangen edition has even reprinted the 29th chapter of the Gospel of John from the old Walch edition.
If a man does not make peace with God and quiets his conscience, he must worry that he has not done enough for him. But it is very fine and certain that he should take hold of God by his own words and promises, that he should have a strong support and defiance of divine truth, so that he may freely and boldly penetrate like God Himself with his own truth, speaking in this way: "Now, dear God, I have lamented and revealed my sin to my neighbor before you, and in your name I have united with him and desired mercy; so you have promised out of great mercy: What is bound shall be bound, what is loosed shall be loosed, and shall come to pass from thy Father what we desire with one accord: so I keep thy promise, doubting not thy truth; as my neighbor hath delivered me in thy name, so be I delivered, and let it be done unto me according to our desire.
Behold, he who confesses to God alone cannot have such defiance and certainty, for these promises of God are set at two, three, and however many they may be. Now God is true, and what He promises, we are sure that He keeps [Ps. 33, 4], which St. Paul says to Timothy [2 Ep. 2, 13]: "Even if we do not believe, He still remains faithful and true, He may not deny Himself." Therefore, such divine truth in his promise is even an exuberant, delicious, rich and strong assurance, which no one lets sink nor falter.
He must remain before all power in heaven and hell and earth, so that God Himself in there also gives Himself to Him and wins Him equally, as is illustrated in Genesis 32, when Jacob wrestled with the angel and fought all night until morning, so that the Scripture there says that Jacob was too strong against God, and the angel could not break him. Therefore he also changed his name and called him Israel (which in German means "prince of God", or he who is mighty in the sight of God), and gave him cause, saying, "You shall henceforth be called Israel", God's mighty one; for if you have been strong against God, how much more will you be mighty against men!
119 So we must all be Israelites,
that we become mighty in God's sight. There is no other way, because God's judgment and our conscience are great enemies: God's judgment is right, our conscience is sinful and criminal. When the two clash, there is the agony and the fear of hell; there is a hard struggle and a hard argument. If the conscience is to be committed and become one Israel, then God must seize it, since it is to be overcome and may be caught. This happens with his promise, to which the conscience must hold so firmly and long, until the judgment must let go, and the promised grace alone remain. Then the conscience becomes happy, because God is what man himself wants. For he cannot lie, and is therefore overcome with his truth, which he has graciously promised beforehand.
Therefore it follows in the same place that the angel delivered Jacob, and Jacob said [Gen. 32:30]: "I have seen God face to face, and my soul is saved." What does he mean by this, for his soul had been in great distress and anguish, had felt God's judgment as angry against him? But what did he do about it? He had a gracious promise from God beforehand, that he would be his God and bless all the world in his seed [Gen. 28:13, 14]. He held fast to the truth, did not let God imagine otherwise, and would have let himself be torn into a hundred thousand pieces before he would have believed otherwise that God, who had graciously made the promise to him, would keep it and be true. And with this he also won and is called a man who has won over God, that is, Israel; of which Hosea 12:4, 5: "He became mighty in his strength of God, and has quickened him against the angel, and has prevailed. He meant and asked him" 2c.
121 Thus he has become Israel, who is God's servant, and before that Jacob (that is, a transgressor who has succumbed to all sin), that is, a free man, who is powerful of God and of sin, hell and heaven. So we also have to overcome God with God, and conquer Him with Himself, in which battle our strength is nothing else than His divine promise and
Truth, which he himself cannot nor will deny. Therefore, whoever takes hold of it has it and will keep it. The bride also confesses this, as she searched for him for a long time and did not find him. As soon as she came upon him before the guards, she found him and said, "I have him and will not leave him." Whoever does not respect such a great good of divine truth, and yet can get it so easily with confession, what else does he show but that he does not greatly respect God's grace, lets such a rich fair be offered to him in vain, that it is to be feared that he will not have righteous faith, nor finally remain steadfast.
122. XXV. But is it not true that if anyone knew that there was such a promise of God as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had, in whatever part of the world it was, we would not have peace of mind to put body and soul into getting it? Now behold, God has made all the world full of such promises in the Gospel. For just what He promised them, He says to us and to all the world in the above-mentioned Proverbs Matt. 18:18 ff. And we have them at our neighbor's door in our house, and will not receive them. The holy patriarchs held them in such high and firm esteem, and we hold them in such low esteem, that we do not want to take upon ourselves a little shame and dishonor in the sight of a few people to receive them. It is a shameful unbelief and an ungrateful contempt of such a gracious promise of divine graces and consolation.
Therefore, God has also afflicted us for such ingratitude with the pope and his cursed laws and imposed as punishment that we run after his lying bulls and deceitful! He punishes us for running after his lying bulls and deceitful indulgences, and for paying and fetching his iniquities with great fare. Does it serve us right, who do not recognize the rich truthful promise of God, nor have received it with love and desire in vain, without cost and effort, that instead of it we have to buy vain lies of the devil through the pope for truth with great effort and cost, as St. Paul proclaims in 2 Thess. 2, 11. 10: "God will send them the effect of error; because they have not believed the truth, and have not accepted the love of God.
Truth not received, that they might have been saved."
But where there is a sincere repentance, there is no need for much pleading or admonishing. And especially in mortal distress, there the sinner becomes quite seer, eager and glad that such a space may be given him to confess, and to hear such comfort of God's promise. Such a heart would give its life many times over before it would lack such benefits.
(125) Why then do we not do this at all times, and while we are in health, if we must always wait for the same sin and be uncertain? Again, as said above, those who are not so skilled are of no use in confession. For there is not yet enough repentance nor faith; therefore it is better for them to leave their confession pending, so that they do not dishonor God's promise and offered grace in confession and revile it by their clumsiness; and in the meantime do not allow themselves to be led astray by the monkey law of the pope, even if they should be banished beforehand. It is better to be under the ban of the jester, the pabst, who is worthless, than to sin in the earnest, true grace and promise of God. And Summa Summarum, he who is a true Christian, let him thank God that he can have such confession, and let him use it with joy and pleasure, regardless of the Pope's folly and commandment, when and how often he wants or is allowed to.
For this reason, there is nothing more to be done here, except to make people willing and willing to do it, without commandment and coercion, by means of a cause that has been touched, so that benefit and fruit will follow. Again, those who are not willing, nor can be moved by such a cause, are much less likely to be brought to it by command and coercion; or if they are forced, and do it without free will, they are only driven to their greater ruin and harm. Therefore, it is necessary here not to require such things, and let the unfortunate commandment of the pope go to the secret chamber, where it belongs, and yet is not worthy of it, because it so horribly chases and drives many thousands of souls to their destruction in this sacrament, and makes a mockery of this high good of divine promise, without any cause and reason, out of purely their own iniquity and will of courage.
It is much better to advise them to confess secretly to God alone. For they will undoubtedly not speak and confess to God secretly three or four times like this; they will ever once strike within themselves, think who is the one to whom they speak, to whom they confess and make amends, and will say to themselves: "How often do you confess, how often do you speak to your God; when will you be serious about your amends? And so, through the same secret confession before God, they would like to come to fear and then become free and willing to confess to man, and thus also obtain God's promises. 1) Otherwise they might never come to mind because of the fear and dread they have of confessing to man, which gives them so much to do that they do not think any further than if they had only come through; so they remain one year like the other, think they have done enough with confession, never really think of God, and only serve habit and the laws of man. Therefore, keep them away from confession and instruct them to get used to confessing to their God, angel or patron in a secret place, and let them stay with it until they become 2) more willing and better.
128. XXVIII. But the weak believers, whom the holy apostle Rom. 15, 1. 14, 1. gives not to despise, but to accept, we want to comfort here also further and to indicate this confession freedom further. The pope has tightened this thing so much in his law that he commands to confess all sins, and only to the priest. You should not do this, because otherwise you would like to; and notice here three of your freedoms.
The first, that you do not presume to confess all sins, but only those that bite you in the conscience and press you, and besides that, accuse others in general with all your life, that the confession is short. 3) The second, that you confess all sins, but only those that bite you in the conscience and press you, and besides that, accuse others in general with all your life, that the confession is short. Namely, "Behold, Lord, I have done this, and this besides, and many more, which are not now necessary to tell; but these are the greatest; ask for good comfort and counsel, for all my life is nothing good. Where did the pope
1) i.e. to be mindful of it.
2) Wittenberg and Erlangen: they then.
3) That is, by accusing your whole life as sinful.
or force man to say all sin in particular, so that God does not require?
The other: they have also talked a lot about confession. But I believe that no one willfully shares his confession who confesses willingly. But if he forgets something, he is not obliged to confess it to the same confessor, but may not confess it at all, or to whom he pleases; for there is no command over or against. But those who confess unwillingly, only out of fear of papal law, what does it matter whether they share or do not share confession, which would be better omitted? For it is of no value and is lost labor, and also harmful to the soul. It is a confession that God does not hear, but it is confessed to the pope. Therefore, as the confessor is, so is the child confessor, so is the absolution, without God's word there 1) is profaned and abused. Therefore, let them divide or complete as they wish, there is nothing to it.
The third freedom: If you do not want to confess to a priest or monk, take before you a man, layman or priest, to whom you are well disposed, and do nothing else but seek faithful counsel and comfort for your soul; wait for what God wants to say to you through him. And as he tells you in God's name, follow and let it be an absolution for you, and stay on it, do not seek any other absolution. The priests should be such people, since everyone should seek comfort and advice in such matters: so violence almost tickles them that no one confesses to them out of fear of the pope's law. They make such disfavor with their tyranny that they do not want to be servants but masters in Christendom. Then their rule should be left alone, and once they should be reminded of their service, and they should be made to see that they are not lords but servants, as Christ has commanded them.
132 Now that I do not speak these things out of my head, let us hear Christ Himself, when He says in the above words Matth. 18, 15: "If your brother sins against you, go and punish him between you and him.
1) Thus the Erlanger. In the old editions: "the".
alone. If he hears you, you have won your brother." Listen to the chief priest and judge. He says: The brother is won, where he lets say to him, and his sin recognizes secretly between him and his neighbor alone. If he is won, then everything is bad, and the sin disappears there secretly between the two of them alone; what more may he confess? Christ Himself absolves him in this alone, 2) that he hears his brother, and the things become one. There is never a priest nor a pope, nor 3) is the brother won, and sin forgiven.
133. XXX. How much more will this be so if I myself come first and punish myself before my neighbor and ask advice and comfort from him? Do you think that if I have Christ's word and absolution here, I should let myself be challenged whether the pope does not absolve me, who has no bag of Scripture for his secret confession, and I have such a strong saying of Christ for me here? Yes, it will follow here that the secret confession, punishment and correction of sins will be taken from the priests and given to everyone in the whole community. For Christ does not say to Petro or to anyone alone, but to everyone in general: "Go and punish your brother. Therefore every Christian man is a confessor of secret confession, which the pope has seized, just as he seized the keys, bishoprics, and everything else, the great robber.
(134) If Christ judges and says that the brother is won, and yet it is done secretly, do not be afraid. He will not lie to you. If he is won, sin is gone, and grace is there; what more do you want? To this the following saying [v. 20.] also helps, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in their means." Why is he in their means, because he accepts and approves what they do? yes, he himself is the one who does it. What then do we continue to fight, since we have his clear word that everything is right and wrong in his sight, what is done in his name between brother and brother?
2) Thus the Wittenberg edition. In the other editions: alone, so that and so on.
3) "nor" ----- nevertheless; missing in the Jenaer.
And he also wants to have a hand in the secret means, yes, does not let him be satisfied with what Christ himself has enough of, passes over Christ and forces to open such a secret thing also to him and his own; yes, destroys such a secret, Christian confession and sets up a papal, human, secret confession, without any reason and cause.
135. XXXI. This is also so strong or even stronger that he says [v. 19.]: "If two of you are one with each other on earth, whereof they shall ask, it shall be done unto them of my Father which is in heaven." I mean, that is, the pope reached into his mouth and tore his cobwebby law to pieces. 1) He says in general, "If there be two among you," saith not, if the pope and layman, priest and citizen, monk and peasant; but two, who they be, if they be but among you, that is, Christians, and on earth, lest any man should presume, as the pope did, to deliver the dead into purgatory or hell. And "wherein they become one" 2c. There he speaks freely, does not exclude anything, understands without any doubt also the sins that are traded between brother and brother, and in short all things. Now hear the verdict and decision: "It shall be done for them by my Father in heaven." Behold, what wouldst thou have more and stronger? Christ is there; the Father hears, if only two alone ask, gathered together in Christ's name, what they want or need. Therefore, let us only freshly and cheerfully consider his clear words, and let one confess, counsel, help, and ask the other for whatever we secretly need, be it sin or pain, and never doubt such a light, bright promise of God, freely and cheerfully go to the sacrament and die, much safer and more certain than Pabst's secret confession, because it has no reason; but here is a strong reason.
1) Wittenberger: "to grasp" and "to tear".
(136) Yes, I say further, and warn that no one ever confesses secretly to a priest, as a priest, but as to a common brother and Christian. And this because papal confession has no foundation, that we do not build on sand, but that we confess in virtue of these words of Christ, when we confess, whether layman or priest, and lean boldly and comfort ourselves that when two gather together in his name, that what they do is Christ's, pleases him, what they ask is done by the Father, they never doubt it. Now there is no better way to come together in Christ's name than to seek the remission of sin, to seek his grace, help, and comfort; this is most dear to him, for his name and honor are sought, and our name and honor are destroyed.
From all this we now see how far away Papal tyranny, out of the devil's counsel, has led us from the Gospel and Christ, and from all our comfort and salvation, and yet has robbed us of all the world's money, goods and honor, as if he had well arranged it, so that if it were not our merit, for God's sake, it would be fair that we paint him to powder with his devil's chair. It is the right arch-chief antichrist, whom, God willing, our Lord Christ will almost push into the abyss of hell by his future, amen.
Therefore, let us confess our guilt and lament ingratitude. We have not received God's word and grace in vain, therefore he has given us the pope as punishment, who sold us his lies and error for all our goods, body and life, until he devoured soul, body and goods and still devours them daily. And let us unitedly pray against the same devil's stink and abomination in Rome, which poisons all the world, that God will again lift up His word and destroy this sinful, corrupt human law. To this end, may Christ our Lord, blessed for ever and ever, help us, Amen.