During the three years following the sack of Rome, the political world was a stormy sea with ambition, intrigue, and war. But the strife of the political world brought peace to the Church as the Churches’ enemies were battling with each other. The Diet at Spires had decreed that until a general council could be held, each State was free to decide religious matters for itself. In the reformed states, freedom bloomed while persecution persisted in the states where the Reformation had not been able to take hold. Luther was quick to realize that this was the opportunity to build the church. Up to this time there had been a Reformation but no Reformed Church. There were Christians but no organization visible to society. The preaching of the Gospel had resulted in a number of men throughout the provinces who were united in heart around Christ, the one Living Center, and united in the truth, but they needed outward unity as well. Without a unity visible to the world the church would fail to propagate itself and would languish and die. “These Christians must be gathered into a family, and built up into a kingdom—a holy and spiritual kingdom.” Wylie, History of Protestantism, bk 1, 533
Reconstitution of the Ministry
First in the work of organization was an order of men to preach the Gospel and dispense the Sacraments. Luther studied how this reconstitution of the ministry, cut off from Rome, was to proceed. The existence of the Church was for the purpose of spreading salvation through the earth and this demands preaching. As a steadfast believer in the priesthood of all believers, he held that the functions of the ministers were the possession of the Church—of all believers. A chosen few were, of necessity, to carry out these functions. These few were not of self-appointment but were to be called by the congregation. This constituted a call by God through the instrumentality of man.
The ministers of the Lutheran Church were direct opposites of the Roman clergy in that the Lutheran ministers were chosen democratically by the people while the Roman priests were appointed by a sacerdotal monarch. “Wherever there is a line of sacramentally ordained men, there and there only is the Church, said Rome. Wherever the Word is faithfully preached, and the Sacraments purely administered, there is the Church, said the Reformation.” Ibid., 534
In organizing the ministry the Church did not surrender freedom, for the ministers were not elected with power that was autocratic. Those who held power were to be the Church’s servants, not her lords. The Church ever held the right of calling to account or deposing from office those who violated the conditions of their appointment. This right was the safeguard against corruption and the power to reform.
But Luther had not thought deeply about the question of Church and State, of how far the civil authorities may go in enacting ecclesiastical arrangements. He committed much of the organizing of the Church to the princes. It seemed a necessity of the times as the common people were not yet educated in these matters and the princes were prominent for their religious intelligence and their zeal.
The Visitations by Luther
On October 22, 1526, Luther persuaded Elector John of Saxony to commission a visitation of the Church. The Elector authorized four commissioners to inquire into the temporal condition of the Church and also into ecclesiastical matters involving schools, doctrine, and pastors. Melancthon drew up the instructions for the re-institution of the Church in Saxony. Luther, Melancthon, Spalatin, and Thuring were the chief commissioners.
Their visitation revealed many errors, abuses, mistakes and anomalies which had developed from centuries of Papal rule and which would require more than a day to cleanse. “From the living waters of the sanctuary only could a real purification be looked for, and the care of the visitors was to open channels, or remove obstructions, that this cleansing current might freely pervade the land.” Ibid., 536
Ignorant and immoral pastors were removed, and ministers were appointed in their place. Pastors of greater cities were given the title of superintendents, and appointed to supervise the smaller congregations and schools. “Armed with the authority of the elector, the visitors suppressed the convents; the inmates were restored to society, the buildings were converted into schools and hospitals, and the property was divided between the maintenance of public worship and national uses. Ministers were encouraged to marry, and their families became centers of moral and intellectual life throughout the Fatherland.” Ibid., 536
Melancthon’s plan of Church reform was very conservative. He discreetly veiled antagonistic points of Reformation doctrine. He aimed to alter as little as possible and conserve as much as possible. “Some called this moderation, others termed it trimming; the Romanist thought that the Reformation troops had begun their march back; the Wittenbergers were not without suspicion of treachery.” Ibid., 537. Images and tapers were tolerated in many churches. But despite these drawbacks, good was done and the preaching of the Word was made central. This plan was used in organizing the churches of many other provinces.
The Constitution of The Churches of Hesse
Thanks to the efforts of a remarkable man, Francis Lambert, a converted Franciscan monk, the Church of Hesse was exceptional in advancing reform. Lambert traversed the countries of Switzerland and Germany riding a donkey and wearing his grey monks robes tied with a cord and everywhere preaching by the way. When he reached Wittenberg, he went to visit Luther who found him to have a clearness of knowledge and a decisive character. Luther introduced him to Phillip of Hesse and the two men worked together for great good for the Churches of Hesse.
Lambert was invited by Phillip to frame a constitution for the Churches. The resulting one hundred and fifty-eight “Paradoxes” produced a basis broad enough to permit every member to exercise his influence in church governance. He nailed his document to the church doors. Some were torn down but others were read to crowds. In the first seven alone we see what might have been the foundation of a lofty church structure with its corner stone the “universal priesthood” of believers. “Not a select few only, but all believers, are to be built as living stones into this ‘holy house’. . . This was a catholicity of which the Church which claims catholicity as her exclusive possession knew nothing.” Ibid., 538. That church made one part of the church dependent on another for salvation, and made within the congregation two classes, the oligarchs and the serfs.
Lambert’s “Paradoxes” declared that “all that is deformed ought to be reformed.” That “the Word of God is the rule of all true Reformation. The Church is to judge in matters of faith” and that “the Church is the congregation of those who are united by the same spirit, the same faith, the same God, the same Mediator, the same Word, by which alone they are governed . . . The kingdom of heaven is open to him who believes the Word and shut against him who believes it not. Whoever, therefore, truly possesses the power of the Word of God, has the power of the keys . . . Christ is the only immortal and eternal Priest; and he does not, like men, need a successor . . . All Christians, since the commencement of the Church, have been and are participators in Christ’s priesthood.” Ibid., 538. In this document the ancient and established order was abolished. The authority for this came from Peter, who taught a very different order from the one claimed to generate from him by the Roman church. Peter’s statement to all believers is “Ye are all royal priests.” (See 1 Peter 2:4-10.)
Before these propositions could be used as a basis for reform in the Church, Lambert had to present them before the ecclesiastical authorities. The Romish party assailed the Paradoxes and Lambert defended them with such eloquence that every opponent was silenced. After three days of discussion his proposals were carried.
The Church constitution of Hesse, written from the Paradoxes, became the first of the Reformation. It differed a great deal from any subsequent enactment in Germany. Its origin and authority were exclusively from the Church. It made mention of neither the State or landgrave. Every member with competent learning and piety, was eligible to be a minister. Each congregation was to choose its own pastor. The pastors were equal and ordained by the laying on of the hands of three others. They were to meet with their congregations every Sabbath and an annual synod was to supervise the whole body. Switzerland and Scotland later adopted constitutions very similar but, in Germany where the Institutions of Melancthon were the rule, this constitution was not popular and in 1528 it was remodeled after the principles of the Church of Saxony.
More Than Just a Principle
The visitations marked a great event in the history of Protestantism. Prior to the organization of the Church, the Reformation had been simply a principle fighting against an established and organized system. Now it was a body through which the principle could act. Now its presence could be seen and its power felt by men. It did not borrow its organization from the traditions of the existing hierarchy, which were more like those of the pagan temples, but the New Testament contained the model—the simple apostolic organization. “Thus it disposed of the claims of the Romish Church to antiquity by attesting itself as more ancient than it.” Ibid., 540
In the visitations we see Luther with tenderness and pity. He is afraid of going too far and leaves some question as to whether he goes far enough. He is cautious that he does not hurt the feelings of a weak brother or act unjustly or severely to another. He instructs the preachers to preach “repent,” and to never disconnect repentance from faith. They “were not to fling stones at Romanism; the true light would extinguish the false.” Ibid., 540. They were to teach that man could refrain from sins but that God was to be sought for help, not the saints. Luther, clinging to Romanism, taught that in administering the Sacrament they were to teach the “real presence.”
Luther saw, during the visits, what he could have seen in no other way. He saw the deplorable ignorance of the common people. By withholding schools, preachers and the Bible, the Church of Rome had left the German peasants entirely without intellectual and spiritual culture. Here Luther became aware of another misdeed of Rome. He well knew of her pride as seen in the exceeding loftiness of the titles of the Popes. He understood her tyranny exhibited in the statutes of the canon law and the edicts of her Councils. Her intolerance had been seen in the long years of persecution, the slaughter of the Albigenses and the stakes of martyrs. Her avarice had long bled the people of their little substance. But here he saw another product of Rome. “It had covered the nations with a darkness so deep that the very idea of a God was almost lost . . . It was not the Romish system only, but all religion that was on the point of perishing.” Ibid., 542
Luther sat down and wrote his Shorter and Larger Catechisms which did much good by spreading knowledge and rooting and grounding the souls of the common people, as his commentaries had enlightened the nobility and the more educated. Wherever these little books went they evoked an outburst of spiritual activity. Intellectual and political reforms followed. These little books proved to be one of the best outcomes of the visitations.
The End