We must, therefore, beware of those who have reduced the power of baptism to such a vanishing point as to say that the grace of God is indeed inpoured in baptism, but afterwards poured out again through sin, and that thereupon one must reach heaven by another way; as if baptism had then become entirely useless. Do not you hold to such a view, but know that baptism signifies your dying and living again, and therefore, whether it be by penance or by any other way, you can but return to the power of your baptism, and do afresh that which you were baptised to do and which your baptism signified. Never does baptism lose its power, unless you despair and refuse to return to its salvation. You may, indeed, or a season wander away from the sign, but that does not make the sign of none effect. You have, thus, been baptised once in the sacrament, but you must be constantly baptised again through faith, you must constantly die, you must constantly live again. Baptism swallowed up your whole body, and gave it forth again; even so that which baptism signifies should swallow up your whole life in body and soul, and give it forth again at the last day, clad in robes of glory and immortality. We are, therefore, never without the sign of baptism nor yet without the thing it signifies; nay, we must be baptised ever more and more completely, until we perfectly fulfil the sign, at the last day.
Therefore, whatever we do in this life that avails for the mortifying of the flesh and the giving life to the spirit, belongs to baptism; and the sooner we depart this life the sooner do we fulfil our baptism, and the greater our sufferings the more closely do we conform to our baptism. Hence those were the Church's halcyon days, when the martyrs were being killed every day and accounted as sheep for the slaughter [Ps. 44:22; Rom. 8:36]; for then the power of baptism reigned supreme in the Church, which power we have to-day lost sight of amid the multitude of works and doctrines of men. For all our life should be baptism, and the fulfilling of the sign, or sacrament, of baptism; we have been set free from all else and wholly given over to baptism alone, that is, to death and resurrection.
This glorious liberty of ours, and this understanding of baptism have been carried captive in our day; and whom have we to thank for this but the Roman pontiff with his despotism? More than all others, it was his first duty, as chief shepherd, to preach and defend this liberty and this knowledge, as Paul says in I Corinthians: "Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries, or sacraments, of God." [1 Cor. 4:1] Instead of this, he seeks only to oppress us with his decrees and his laws, and to enslave and ensnare us in the tyranny of his power. By what right, in God's name, does the pope impose his laws upon us? to say nothing of his wicked and damnable neglect to teach these mysteries. Who gave him power to despoil us of this liberty, granted us in baptism? One thing only (as I have said) has been enjoined upon us all the days of our life,--to be baptised; that is, to be put to death and to live again, through faith in Christ; and this faith alone should have been taught, especially by the chief shepherd. But now there is not a word said about faith, and the Church is laid waste with endless laws concerning works and ceremonies; the power and right understanding of baptism are put by, and faith in Christ is prevented.
Therefore I say: Neither pope nor bishop nor any other man has the right to impose a single syllable of law upon a Christian man without his consent; and if he does, it is done in the spirit of tyranny. Therefore the prayers, fasts, donations, and whatever else the pope decrees and demands in all of his decretals, as numerous as they are iniquitous, he demands and decrees without any right whatever; and he sins against the liberty of the Church whenever he attempts any such thing. Hence it has come to pass that the churchmen of our day are indeed such vigorous defenders of the liberty of the Church, that is, of wood and stone, of land and rents--for "churchly" is nowadays the same as "spiritual"--yet with such fictions they not only take captive but utterly destroy the true liberty of the Church, and deal with us far worse than the Turk, in opposition to the word of the Apostle, "Be not made the bondslaves of men." [1 Cor. 7:23] For, verily, to be subjected to their statutes and tyrannical laws is to be made the bondslaves of men.
This impious and desperate tyranny is fostered by the pope's disciples, who here drag in and pervert that saying of Christ, "He that heareth you heareth me." [Luke 10:16] With puffed cheeks they blow up this saying to a great size in support of their traditions. Though Christ spake it to the apostles when they went forth to preach the Gospel, and though it applies solely to the Gospel, they pass over the Gospel and apply it only to their fables. He says in John x: "My sheep hear my voice, but the voice of a stranger they hear not" [John 10:27]; and to this end He left us the Gospel, that His voice might be uttered by the pontiffs. But they utter their own voice, and themselves desire to be heard. Moreover, the Apostle says that he was not sent to baptise but to preach the Gospel [1 Cor. 1:17]. Therefore, no one is bound to the traditions of the pope, nor does he need to give ear to him unless he teaches the Gospel and Christ, and the pope should teach nothing but faith without any restrictions. But since Christ says, "He that heareth you heareth me," [Luke 10:16] and does not say to Peter only, "He that heareth thee"; why does not the pope also hear others? In fine, where there is true faith, there must also be the word of faith. Why then does not an unbelieving pope now and then hear a believing servant of his, who has the word of faith? It is blindness, sheer blindness, that holds the popes in its power.
But others, more shameless still, arrogantly ascribe to the pope the power to make laws, on the basis of Matthew xvi, "Whatsoever thou shalt bind," [Matt. 16:19] etc., though Christ treats in this passage of binding and loosing sins, not of taking the whole Church captive and oppressing it with laws. So this tyranny treats everything with its own lying words and violently wrests and perverts the words of God. I admit indeed that Christians ought to bear this accursed tyranny just as they would bear any other violence of this world, according to Christ's word: "If one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other." [Matt. 5:39] But this is my complaint,--that the godless pontiffs boastfully claim the right to do this, that they pretend to be seeking the Church's welfare with this Babylon of theirs, and that they foist this fiction upon all mankind. For if they did these things, and we suffered their violence, well knowing, both of us, that it was godlessness and tyranny, then we might number it among the things that tend to the mortifying of this life and the fulfilling of our baptism, and might with a good conscience glory in the inflicted injury. But now they seek to deprive us of this consciousness of our liberty, and would have us believe that what they do is well done, and must not be censured or complained of as wrongdoing. Being wolves, they masquerade as shepherds; being anti-christs, they would be honored as Christ.
Solely in behalf of this freedom of conscience, I lift my voice and confidently cry: No laws may by any right be laid upon Christians, whether by men or angels, without their consent; for we are free from all things. And if any laws are laid upon us, we must bear them in such a way as to preserve the consciousness of our liberty, and know and certainly affirm that the making of such laws is an injustice, which we will bear and glory in, giving heed not to justify the tyrant nor yet to rebel against his tyranny. "For who is he," says Peter, "that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" [1 Pet. 3:13] "All things work together or good to the elect." [Rom. 8:28]
Nevertheless, since but few know this glory of baptism and the blessedness of Christian liberty, and cannot know them because of the tyranny of the pope, I for one will clear my skirts and salve my conscience by bringing this charge against the pope and all his papists: Unless they will abolish their laws and traditions, and restore to Christ's churches their liberty and have it taught among them, they are guilty of all the souls that perish under this miserable captivity, and the papacy is of a truth the kingdom of Babylon, yea, of very Antichrist! For who is "the man of sin" and "the son of perdition" [2 Thess. 2:3 f.] but he that with his doctrines and his laws increases sins and the perdition of souls in the Church, while he sitteth in the Church as if he were God? All this the papal tyranny has fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, these many centuries; it has extinguished faith, obscured the sacraments and oppressed the Gospel; but its own laws, which are not only impious and sacrilegious, but even barbarous and foolish, it has enjoined and multiplied world without end.
Behold, then, our miserable captivity; how the city doth sit solitary that was full of people! How the mistress of the Gentiles is become as a widow: the princess of provinces made tributary! There is none to comfort her, all her friends have despised her. [Lament. 1:1 f.] So many orders, so many rites, so many sects, so many professions, exertions and works, in which Christians are engaged, until they lose sight of their baptism, and for this swarm of locusts, cankerworms and caterpillars [Joel 1:4] not one of them is able to remember that he is baptised or what blessings his baptism brought him. We should be even as little children, newly baptised, who are engaged in no efforts and no works, but are free in every way, secure and saved solely through the glory of their baptism. For we are indeed little children, continually baptised anew in Christ.
In contradiction of what has been said, some will perhaps point to the baptism of infants, who do not grasp the promise of God and cannot have the faith of baptism; so that either faith is not necessary or else infant baptism is without effect. Here I say what all say: Infants are aided by the faith of others, namely, those who bring them to baptism. For the Word of God is powerful, when it is uttered, to change even a godless heart, which is no less deaf and helpless than any infant. Even so the infant is changed, cleansed and renewed by inpoured faith, through the prayer of the Church that presents it for baptism and believes, to which prayer all things are possible [Mark 9:23]. Nor should I doubt that even a godless adult might be changed, in any of the sacraments, if the same Church prayed and presented him; as we read in the Gospel of the man sick of the palsy, who was healed through the faith of others [Matt. 9:1 ff.]. I should be ready to admit that in this sense the sacraments of the New Law are efficacious to confer grace, not only to those who do not, but even to those who do most obstinately, oppose a bar. What obstacle will not the faith of the Church and the prayer of faith remove? Do we not believe that Stephen by this powerful means converted Paul the Apostle? But then the sacraments accomplish what they do not by their own power, but by the power of faith, without which they accomplish nothing at all, as has been said.
There remains the question, whether it is right to baptise an infant not yet born, with only a hand or a foot presenting. Here I will decide nothing hastily, and confess my ignorance. I am not sure whether the reason given by some is sufficient,--that the soul resides in its entirety in every part of the body; or it is not the soul but the body that is externally baptised with water. Nor do I share the view of others, that he who is not yet born cannot be born again, even though it has considerable force. I leave these matters to the teaching of the Spirit, and meanwhile permit every one to abound in his own sense [Rom. 14:15 (Vulg.)].
One thing I will add--and would to God I might persuade all to do it!--viz., completely to abolish or avoid all vows, be they vows to enter religious orders, to make pilgrimages or to do any works whatsoever, that we may remain in the liberty of our baptism, which is the most religious and rich in works. It is impossible to say how greatly that widespread delusion of vows lowers baptism and obscures the knowledge of Christian liberty; to say nothing now of the unspeakable and infinite peril of souls which that mania for making vows and that ill-advised rashness daily increase. O most godless pontiffs and unhappy pastors, who slumber on unheeding and indulge your evil lusts, without pity or this "affliction of Joseph," [Amos 6:4-6] so dreadful and fraught with peril!
Vows should either be abolished by a general edict, particularly such as are taken for life, and all men diligently recalled to the vows of baptism, or else everyone should be warned not to take a vow rashly, and no one encouraged to do so, nay, permission be given only with difficulty and reluctance. For we have vowed enough in baptism, nay, more than we can ever fulfil; if we give ourselves to the keeping of this one vow, we shall have all we can do. But now we compass earth and sea to make many proselytes [Matt. 23:15]; we fill the world with priests, monks and nuns, and imprison them all in life-long vows. You will find those who argue and decide that a work done in fulfilment of a vow ranks higher than one done without a vow, and is to be rewarded with I know not what great rewards in heaven. Blind and godless Pharisees, who measure righteousness and holiness by the greatness, number or other quality of the works! But God measures them by faith alone, and with Him there is no difference between works except that which is wrought by faith.
With such bombast these wicked men advertise their inventions and puff up human works, to lure on the unthinking populace, who are almost always led by the glitter of works to make shipwreck of their faith, to forget their baptism and do despite to their Christian liberty. For a vow is a kind of law or requirement; therefore, when vows are multiplied, laws and works are necessarily multiplied, and when this is done, faith is extinguished and the liberty of baptism taken captive. Others, not content with these wicked allurements, add yet this and say that entrance into a religious order is a new baptism, as it were, which may afterward be repeated as often as the purpose to live the religious life is renewed. Thus these "votaries" have appropriated to themselves all righteousness, salvation and glory, and let to those who are merely baptised nothing to compare with them. Nay, the Roman pontiff, that fountain and source of all superstitions, confirms, approves and adorns this mode of life with high-sounding bulls and dispensations, while no one deems baptism worthy of even a thought. And with such glittering pomp (as we have said) they drive the easily led people of Christ into certain disaster, so that in their ingratitude toward baptism they presume to achieve greater things by their works than others achieve by their faith.
Therefore, God again shows Himself froward to the froward [Ps. 18:26], and to repay the makers of vows for their ingratitude and pride, causes them to break their vows or to keep them only with prodigious labor; to remain sunk in them, never coming to the knowledge of the grace of faith and baptism; to continue in their hypocrisy unto the end--since their spirit is not approved of God--and at last to become a laughing-stock to the whole world, ever ensuing righteousness and never attaining unto righteousness; so that they fulfil the word of Isaiah: "The land is full of idols." [Isa. 2:8]
I am indeed far from forbidding or discouraging any one who may desire to take a vow privately and of his own free choice; for I would not altogether despise and condemn vows. But I would most strongly advise against setting up and sanctioning the making of vows as a public mode of life. It is enough that every one should have the private right to take a vow at his peril; but to commend the vowing of vows as a public mode of life--this I hold to be most harmful to the Church and to simple souls. And I hold this, first, because it runs directly counter to the Christian life; for a vow is a certain ceremonial law and a human tradition or presumption, and from these the Christian has been set free through baptism. For a Christian is subject to no laws but the law of God. Again, there is no instance in Scripture of such a vow, especially of life-long chastity, obedience and poverty. But whatever is without warrant of Scripture is hazardous and should by no means be commended to any one, much less established as a common and public mode of life, although whoever will must be permitted to make the venture at his own peril. For certain works are wrought by the Spirit in a few men, but they must not be made an example or a mode of life or all.
Moreover, I greatly fear that these modes of life of the religious orders belong to those things which the Apostle foretold: "They shall teach a life in hypocrisy, forbidding to marry, to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving." [1 Tim. 4:2 f.] Let no one retort by pointing to Sts. Bernard, Francis, Dominic and others, who founded or fostered monastic orders. Terrible and marvelous is God in His counsels toward the sons of men. He could keep Daniel, Ananias, Azarias and Misael holy at the court of the king of Babylon [Dan 1:6 ff.], that is, in the midst of godlessness; why could He not sanctify those men also in their perilous mode of living or guide them by the special operation of His Spirit, yet without desiring it to be an example to others? Besides, it is certain that none of them was saved through his vows and his "religious" life; they were saved through faith alone, by which all men are saved, and with which that splendid slavery of vows is more than anything else in conflict.
But every one may hold to his own view of this [Rom. 14:5]. I will return to my argument. Speaking now in behalf of the Church's liberty and the glory of baptism, I feel myself in duty bound publicly to set forth the counsel I have learned under the Spirit's guidance. I therefore counsel the magnates of the churches, first of all, to abolish all those vows, or at least not to approve and extol them. If they will not do this, then I counsel all men who would be assured of their salvation, to abstain from all vows, above all from the great and life-long vows; I give this counsel especially to all growing boys and youths. This I do, first, because this manner of life has no witness or warrant in the Scriptures, as I have said, but is puffed up solely by the bulls (and they truly are "bulls") of human popes. And, secondly, because it greatly tends to hypocrisy, by reason of its outward show and its unusual character, which engender conceit and a contempt of the common Christian life. And if there were no other reason for abolishing these vows, this one were reason enough, namely, that through them, faith and baptism are slighted and works are exalted, which cannot be done without harmful results. For in the religious orders there is scarce one in many thousands, who is not more concerned about works than about faith, and on the basis of this madness they have even made distinctions among themselves, such as "the more strict" and "the more lax," as they call them.
Therefore I advise no one to enter any religious order or the priesthood--nay, I dissuade everyone--unless he be forearmed with this knowledge and understand that the works of monks and priests, be they never so holy and arduous, differ no whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic toiling in the field or the woman going about her household tasks, but that all works are measured before Him by faith alone; as Jeremiah says: "O Lord, thine eyes are upon faith" [Jer. 5:3]; and Ecclesiasticus: "In every work of thine regard thy soul in faith: for this is the keeping of the commandments." [Eccles. 32:27] Nay, he should know that the menial housework of a maidservant or manservant is ofttimes more acceptable to God than all the fastings and other works of a monk or a priest, because the latter lacks faith. Since, therefore, vows seem to tend nowadays only to the glorification of works and to pride, it is to be feared that there is nowhere less of faith and of the Church than among the priests, monks and bishops, and that these men are in truth heathen or hypocrites, who imagine themselves to be the Church or the heart of the Church, and "spiritual," and the Church's leaders, when they are everything else but that. And it is to be feared that this is indeed "the people of the captivity," [Ps. 64:1 (Vulg.)] among whom all things freely given us in baptism are held captive, while "the people of the earth" are left behind in poverty and in small numbers, and, as is the lot of married folk, appear vile in their eyes.
From what has been said we learn that the Roman pontiff is guilty of two glaring errors. In the first place, he grants dispensations from vows, and does it as though he alone of all Christians possessed this authority; such is the temerity and audacity of wicked men. If it be possible to grant a dispensation from a vow, then any brother may grant one to his neighbor or even to himself. But if one's neighbor cannot grant a dispensation, neither can the pope by any right. For whence has he his authority? From the power of the keys? But the keys belong to all, and avail only for sins (Matthew xviii) [Matt. 18:15 ff.]. Now they themselves claim that vows are "of divine right." Why then does the pope deceive and destroy the poor souls of men by granting dispensations in matters of divine right, in which no dispensations can be granted? He babbles indeed, in the section "Of vows and their redemption," of having the power to change vows, just as in the law the firstborn of an ass was changed or a sheep [Ex.13:13]--as if the firstborn of an ass, and the vow he commands to be everywhere and always offered, were one and the same thing, or as if when God decrees in His law that a sheep shall be changed or an ass, the pope, a mere man, may straightway claim the same power, not in his own law but in God's! It was not a pope, but an ass changed for a pope, that made this decretal; so egregiously senseless and godless is it.
The other error is this. The pope decrees, on the other hand, that marriage is dissolved if one party enter a monastery even without the consent of the other, provided the marriage be not yet consummated. Gramercy, what devil puts such monstrous things into the pope's mind! God commands men to keep faith and not break their word to one another, and again, to do good with that which is their own; for He hates "robbery in a holocaust," [Isa. 61:8] as he says by the mouth of Isaiah. But one spouse is bound by the marriage contract to keep faith with the other, and he is not his own. He cannot break his faith by any right, and whatever he does with himself is robbery if it be without the other's consent. Why does not one who is burdened with debts follow this same rule and obtain admission to an order, so as to be released from his debts and be free to break his word? O more than blind! Which is greater; the faith commanded by God or a vow devised and chosen by man? Thou art a shepherd of souls, O pope? And ye that teach such things are doctors of sacred theology? Why then do ye teach them? Because, forsooth, ye have decked out your vow as a better work than marriage, and do not exalt faith, which alone exalts all things, but ye exalt works, which are naught in the sight of God, or which are all alike so far as any merit is concerned.
I have no doubt, therefore, that neither men nor angels can grant a dispensation from vows, if they be proper vows. But I am not fully clear in my own mind whether all the things that men nowadays vow come under the head of vows. For instance, it is simply foolish and stupid for parents to dedicate their children, before birth or in early infancy, to "the religious life," or to perpetual chastity; nay, it is certain that this can by no means be termed a vow. It seems a mockery of God to vow things which it is not at all in one's power to keep. As to the triple vow of the monastic orders, the longer I consider it, the less I comprehend it, and I marvel whence the custom of exacting this vow has arisen. Still less do I understand at what age vows may be taken in order to be legal and valid. I am pleased to find them unanimously agreed that vows taken before the age of puberty are not valid. Nevertheless, they deceive many young children who are ignorant both of their age and of what they are vowing; they do not observe the age of puberty in receiving such children, who after making their profession are held captive and devoured by a troubled conscience, as though they had afterward given their consent. As if a vow which was invalid could afterward become valid with the lapse of time.
It seems absurd to me that the terms of a legal vow should be prescribed to others by those who cannot prescribe them for themselves. Nor do I see why a vow taken at eighteen years of age should be valid, and not one taken at ten or twelve years. It will not do to say that at eighteen a man feels his carnal desires. How is it when he scarcely feels them at twenty or thirty, or when he feels them more keenly at thirty than at twenty? Why do they not also set a certain age-limit or the vows of poverty and obedience? But at what age will you say a man should feel his greed and pride? Even the most spiritual hardly become aware of these emotions. Therefore, no vow will ever become binding and valid until we have become spiritual, and no longer have any need of vows. You see, these are uncertain and perilous matters, and it would therefore be a wholesome counsel to leave such lofty modes of living, unhampered by vows, to the Spirit alone, as they were of old, and by no means to change them into a rule binding or life. But let this suffice for the present concerning baptism and its liberty; in due time I may treat of the vows at greater length. Of a truth they stand sorely in need of it.
THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE
We come in the third place to the sacrament of penance. On this subject I have already given no little offence by my published treatises and disputations, in which I have amply set forth my views. These I must now briefly rehearse, in order to unmask the tyranny that is rampant here no less than in the sacrament of the bread. For because these two sacraments furnish opportunity for gain and profit, the greed of the shepherds rages in them with incredible zeal against the flock of Christ; although baptism, too, has sadly declined among adults and become the servant of avarice, as we have just seen in our discussion of vows.
This is the first and chief abuse of this sacrament: They have utterly abolished the sacrament itself, so that there penance is not a vestige of it left. For they have overthrown both the word of divine promise and our faith, in which this as well as other sacraments consists. They have applied to their tyranny the word of promise which Christ spake in Matthew xvi, "Whatsoever thou shalt bind," etc. [Matt. 16:19], in Matthew xviii, "Whatsoever ye shall bind," [Matt. 18:18] etc., and in John, the last chapter, "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them," [John 20:23] etc. In these words the faith of penitents is aroused, to the obtaining of remission of sins. But in all their writing, teaching and preaching their sole concern has been, not to teach Christians what is promised in these words or what they ought to believe and what great comfort they might find in them, but only to extend their own tyranny far and wide through force and violence, until it has come to such a pass that some of them have begun to command the very angels in heaven and to boast in incredible mad wickedness of having in these words obtained the right to a heavenly and an earthly rule, and of possessing the power to bind even in heaven. Thus they say nothing of the saving faith of the people, but babble only of the despotic power of the pontiffs, whereas Christ speaks not at all of power, but only of faith.
For Christ hath not ordained principalities or powers or lordships, but ministries, in the Church; as we learn from the Apostle, who says: "Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God." [1 Cor. 4:1] Now when He said: "He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved," [Mark 16:16] He called forth the faith of those to be baptised, so that by this word of promise a man might be certain of being saved if he believed and was baptised. In that word there is no impartation of any power whatever, but only the institution of the ministry of those who baptise. Similarly, when He says here: "Whatsoever thou shalt bind," etc. [Matt. 16:19], He calls forth the faith of the penitent, so that by this word of promise he may be certain of being truly absolved in heaven, if he be absolved and believe. Here there is no mention at all of power, but of the ministry of him that absolves. It is a wonder these blind and overbearing men missed the opportunity of arrogating a despotic power to themselves from the promise of baptism. But if they do not do this in the case of baptism, why should they have presumed to do it in the case of the promise of penance? For in both there is a like ministry, a similar promise, and the same kind of sacrament. So that, if baptism does not belong to Peter alone, it is undeniably a wicked usurpation of power to claim the keys for the pope alone. Again, when Christ says: "Take, eat; this is my body, which is given or you. Take, drink; this is the chalice in my blood," etc. [1 Cor. 11:24 f.], He calls forth the faith of those who eat, so that through these words their conscience may be strengthened by faith and they may rest assured of receiving the forgiveness of sins, if they have eaten. Here, too, He says nothing of power, but only of a ministry.
Thus the promise of baptism remains in some sort, at least to infants; the promise of bread and the cup has been destroyed and made subservient to greed, faith becoming a work and the testament a sacrifice; while the promise of penance has fallen prey to the most oppressive despotism of all and serves to establish a more than temporal rule.
Not content with these things, this Babylon of ours has so completely extinguished faith that it insolently denies its necessity in this sacrament; nay, with the wickedness of Antichrist it calls it heresy if any one should assert its necessity. What more could this tyranny do that it has not done? [Isa. 5:4] Verily, by the rivers of Babylon we sit and weep, when we remember thee, O Zion. We hang our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. [Ps. 137:1, 2] The Lord curse the barren willows of those streams! Amen.
Now let us see what they have put in the place of the promise and the faith which they have blotted out and overthrown. Three parts have they made of penance,--contrition, confession, and satisfaction; yet so as to destroy whatever of good there might be in any of them and to establish here also their covetousness and tyranny.
In the first place, they teach that contrition precedes faith in the promise; they hold it much too cheap, making it not a work of faith, but a merit; nay, they do not mention it at all. So deep are they sunk in works and in those instances of Scripture that show how many obtained grace by reason of their contrition and humility of heart; but they take no account of the faith which wrought such contrition and sorrow of heart, as it is written of the men of Nineveh in Jonah iii, "And the men of Nineveh believed in God: and they proclaimed a fast," [Jonah 3:5] etc. Others, again, more bold and wicked, have invented a so-called "attrition," which is converted into contrition by virtue of the power of the keys, of which they know nothing. This attrition they grant to the wicked and unbelieving and thus abolish contrition altogether. O the intolerable wrath of God, that such things should be taught in the Church of Christ! Thus, with both faith and its work destroyed, we go on secure in the doctrines and opinions of men--yea, we go on to our destruction. A contrite heart is a precious thing, but it is found only where there is a lively faith in the promises and the threats of God. Such faith, intent on the immutable truth of God, startles and terrifies the conscience and thus renders it contrite, and afterwards, when it is contrite, raises it up, consoles and preserves it; so that the truth of God's threatening is the cause of contrition, and the truth of His promise the cause of consolation, if it be believed. By such faith a man merits the forgiveness of sins. Therefore faith should be taught and aroused before all else; and when faith is obtained, contrition and consolation will follow inevitably and of themselves.
Therefore, although there is something of truth in their teaching that contrition is to be attained by what they call the recollection and contemplation of sins, yet their teaching is perilous and perverse so long as they do not teach first of all the beginning and cause of contrition,--the immutable truth of God's threatening and promise, to the awakening of faith,--so that men may learn to pay more heed to the truth of God, whereby they are cast down and lifted up, than to the multitude of their sins, which will rather irritate and increase the sinful desires than lead to contrition, if they be regarded apart from the truth of God. I will say nothing now of the intolerable burden they have bound upon us with their demand that we should frame a contrition for every sin. That is impossible; we can know only the smaller part of our sins, and even our good works are found to be sins, according to Psalm cxliii, "Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified." [Ps. 143:2] It is enough to lament the sins which at the present moment distress our conscience, as well as those which we can readily call to mind. Whoever is in this frame of mind is without doubt ready to grieve and fear for all his sins, and will do so whenever they are brought to his knowledge in the future.
Beware, then, of putting your trust in your own contrition and of ascribing the forgiveness of sins to your own sorrow. God does not have respect to you because of that, but because of the faith by which you have believed His threatenings and promises, and which wrought such sorrow within you. Thus we owe whatever of good there may be in our penance, not to our scrupulous enumeration of sins, but to the truth of God and to our faith. All other things are the works and fruits of this, which follow of their own accord, and do not make a man good, but are done by a man already made good through faith in the truth of God. Even so, "a smoke goeth up in His wrath, because He is angry and troubleth the mountains and kindleth them," [Ps. 18:8] as it is said in Psalm xviii. First comes the terror of His threatening, which burns up the wicked, then faith, accepting this, sends up the cloud of contrition, etc.
Contrition, however, is less exposed to tyranny and gain than wholly given over to wickedness and pestilent teaching. But confession and satisfaction have become the chief workshop of greed and violence. Let us first take up confession. There is no doubt that confession is necessary and commanded of God. Thus we read in Matthew iii: "They were baptised of John in Jordan, confessing their sins." [Matt. 3:6] And in I John i: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." [1 John 1:9 f.] If the saints may not deny their sin, how much more ought those who are guilty of open and great sins to make confession! But most effectively of all does Matthew xviii prove the institution of confession, in which passage Christ teaches that a sinning brother should be rebuked, haled before the Church, accused and, if he will not hear, excommunicated. But he hears when, heeding the rebuke, he acknowledges and confesses his sin. [Matt. 18:15]
Of private confession, which is now observed, I am heartily in favor, even though it cannot be proved from the Scriptures; it is useful and necessary, nor would I have it abolished--nay, I rejoice that it exists in the Church of Christ, for it is a cure without an equal for distressed consciences. For when we have laid bare our conscience to our brother and privately made known to him the evil that lurked within, we receive from our brother's lips the word of comfort spoken by God Himself; and, if we accept it in faith, we find peace in the mercy of God speaking to us through our brother. This alone do I abominate,--that this confession has been subjected to the despotism and extortion of the pontiffs. They reserve to themselves even hidden sins, and command that they be made known to confessors named by them, only to trouble the consciences of men. They merely play the pontiff, while they utterly despise the true duties of pontiffs, which are to preach the Gospel and to care for the poor. Yea, the godless despots leave the great sins to the plain priests, and reserve to themselves those sins only which are of less consequence, such as those ridiculous and fictitious things in the bull Coena domini. Nay, to make the wickedness of their error the more apparent, they not only do not reserve, but actually teach and approve, the sins against the service of God, against faith and the chief commandments; such as their running on pilgrimages, the perverse worship of the saints, the lying saints' legends, the various forms of trust in works and ceremonies, and the practicing of them, by all of which faith in God is extinguished and idolatry encouraged, as we see in our day. We have the same kind of priests to-day as Jereboam ordained of old in Dan and Beersheba [1 Kings 12:26 ff.],--ministers of the golden calves, men who are ignorant of the law of God, of faith and of whatever pertains to the feeding of Christ's sheep, and who inculcate in the people nothing but their own inventions with terror and violence.
Although my advice is that we bear this outrage of reserved cases, even as Christ bids us bear all the tyranny of men, and teaches us that we must obey these extortioners; nevertheless I deny that they have the right to make such reservations, nor do I believe they can bring one jot or tittle of proof that they have it. But I am going to prove the contrary. In the first place, Christ, speaking in Matthew xviii of open sins, says that if our brother shall hear us when we rebuke him, we have saved the soul of our brother, and that he is to be brought before the Church only if he refuse to hear us; so that his sin may be corrected among brethren. How much more will it be true of hidden sins, that they are forgiven if one brother freely makes confession to another? So that it is not necessary to tell it to the Church, that is, as these babblers interpret it, the prelate or priest. We have another proof of this in Christ's words in the same chapter: "Whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven." [Matt. 18:18] For this is said to each and every Christian. Again, He says in the same place: "Again I say to you, that if two of you shall consent upon earth, concerning anything whatsoever that they shall ask, it shall be done to them by my Father who is in heaven." [Matt 18:19] Now, the brother who lays his hidden sins before his brother and craves pardon, certainly consents with his brother upon earth in the truth, which is Christ. Of which Christ says yet more clearly, confirming His preceding words: "Verily I say unto you, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." [Matt. 18:20]
Hence, I have no doubt but that every one is absolved from his hidden sins when he has made confession, either of his own accord or after being rebuked, has sought pardon and amended his ways, privately before any brother, however much the violence of the pontiffs may rage against it; for Christ has given to every one of His believers the power to absolve even open sins. Add yet this little point: If any reservation of hidden sins were valid, so that one could not be saved unless they were forgiven, then a man's salvation would be prevented most of all by those aforementioned good works and idolatries, which are nowadays taught by the popes. But if these most grievous sins do not prevent one's salvation, how foolish it is to reserve those lighter sins! Verily, it is the foolishness and blindness of the pastors that produce these monstrous things in the Church. Therefore I would admonish these princes of Babylon and bishops of Bethaven [Hosea 4:15; 10:5] to refrain from reserving any cases whatsoever. Let them, moreover, permit all brothers and sisters freely to hear the confession of hidden sins, so that the sinner may make his sins known to whomever he will and seek pardon and comfort, that is, the word of Christ, by the mouth of his neighbor. For with these presumptions of theirs they only ensnare the consciences of the weak without necessity, establish their wicked despotism, and fatten their avarice on the sins and ruin of their brethren. Thus they stain their hands with the blood of souls, sons are devoured by their parents, Ephraim devours Juda, and Syria Israel with open mouth, as Isaiah saith [Isa 9:20].
To these evils they have added the "circumstances," and also the mothers, daughters, sisters, brothers- and sisters-in-law, branches and fruits of sins; since, forsooth, astute and idle men have worked out a kind of family tree of relationships and affinities even among sins--so prolific is wickedness coupled with ignorance. For this conceit, whatever rogue be its author, has like many another become a public law. Thus do the shepherds keep watch over the Church of Christ; whatever new work or superstition those stupid devotees may have dreamed of, they straightway drag to the light of day, deck out with indulgences and safeguard with bulls; so far are they from suppressing it and preserving to God's people the true faith and liberty. For what has our liberty to do with the tyranny of Babylon? My advice would be to ignore all circumstances utterly. With Christians there is only one circumstance,--that a brother has sinned. For there is no person to be compared with a Christian brother. And the observance of places, times, days, persons, and all other superstitious moonshine, only magnifies the things that are nothing, to the injury of those which are everything; as if aught could be greater or of more importance than the glory of Christian brotherhood! Thus they bind us to places, days and persons, that the name of brother may be lightly esteemed, and we may serve in bondage instead of being free--we to whom all days, places, persons, and all external things are one and the same.
How unworthily they have dealt with satisfaction, I have abundantly shown in the controversies concerning indulgences. They have grossly abused it, to the ruin of Christians in body and soul. To begin with, they taught it in such a manner that the people never learned what satisfaction really is, namely, the renewal of a man's life. Then, they so continually harp on it and emphasize its necessity, that they leave no room for faith in Christ. With these scruples they torture poor consciences to death, and one runs to Rome, one to this place, another to that, this one to Chartreuse, that one to some other place, one scourges himself with rods, another ruins his body with fasts and vigils, and all cry with the same mad zeal, "Lo here is Christ! lo there!" [Luke 17:20 f.] believing that the kingdom of heaven, which is within us, will come with observation.
For these monstrous things we are indebted to thee, O Roman See, and thy murderous laws and ceremonies, with which thou hast corrupted all mankind, so that they think by works to make satisfaction or sin to God, Who can be satisfied only by the faith of a contrite heart! This faith thou not only keepest silent with this uproar of thine, but even oppressest, only so thy insatiable horseleech have those to whom it may say, "Bring, bring!" [Prov. 30:15] and may traffic in sins.
Some have gone even farther and have constructed those instruments for driving souls to despair,--their decrees that the penitent must rehearse all sins anew for which he neglected to make the imposed satisfaction. Yea, what would not they venture to do, who were born for the sole purpose of carrying all things into a tenfold captivity? Moreover, how many are possessed with the notion that they are in a saved state and are making satisfaction for their sins, if they but mumble over, word for word, the prayers the priest has imposed, even though they give never a thought meanwhile to amending their life! They believe that their life is changed in the one moment of contrition and confession, and it remains only to make satisfaction for their past sins. How should they know better, when they are not taught otherwise? No thought is given here to the mortifying of the flesh, no value is attached to the example of Christ, Who absolved the woman taken in adultery and said to her, "Go, and sin no more!" [John 8:11] thereby laying upon her the cross--the mortifying of her flesh. This perverse error is greatly encouraged by our absolving sinners before the satisfaction has been completed, so that they are more concerned about completing the satisfaction which lies before them, than they are about contrition, which they suppose to be past and over when they have made confession. Absolution ought rather to follow on the completion of satisfaction, as it did in the ancient Church, with the result that, after completing the work, penitents gave themselves with greater diligence to faith and the living of a new life.
But this must suffice in repetition of what I have more fully said on indulgences, and in general this must suffice for the present concerning the three sacraments, which have been treated, and yet not treated, in so many harmful books, theological as well as juristic. It remains to attempt some discussion of the other sacraments also, lest I seem to have rejected them without cause.
CONFIRMATION
I wonder what could have possessed them to make a sacrament of confirmation out of the laying on of hands, which Christ employed when He blessed young children [Mark 10:16], and the apostles when they imparted the Holy Spirit [Acts 8:17; Acts 19:6; Acts 6:6; Mark 16:18], ordained elders and cured the sick, as the Apostle writes to Timothy, "Lay hands suddenly on no man." [1 Tim. 5:22] Why have they not also turned the sacrament of the bread into confirmation? For it is written in Acts ix, "And when he had taken meat he was strengthened," and in Psalm civ, "And that bread may cheer man's heart." [Ps. 104:15] Confirmation would thus include three sacraments--the bread, ordination, and confirmation itself. But if everything the apostles did is a sacrament, why have they not rather made preaching a sacrament?
I do not say this because I condemn the seven sacraments, but because I deny that they can be proved from the Scriptures. Would to God we had in the Church such a laying on of hands as there was in apostolic times, whether we called it confirmation or healing! But there is nothing left of it now but what we ourselves have invented to adorn the office of the bishops, that they may have at least something to do in the Church. For after they relinquished to their inferiors those arduous sacraments together with the Word, as being too common for themselves,--since, forsooth, whatever the divine Majesty has instituted must needs be despised of men!--it was no more than right that we should discover something easy and not too burdensome for such delicate and great heroes to do, and should by no means entrust it to the lower clergy as something common--for whatever human wisdom has decreed must needs be held in honor among men! Therefore, as are the priests, so let their ministry and duty be. For a bishop who does not preach the Gospel or care for souls [1 Cor. 8:4], what is he but an idol in the world, having but the name and appearance of a bishop?