Ib. p. 250.
Luther said, "No. A Christian is wholly and altogether sanctified. * *
We must take sure hold on Baptism by faith, as then we shall be, yea, already are, sanctified. In this sort David nameth himself holy."
A deep thought. Strong meat for men. It must not be offered for milk.
Chap. XXI. p. 276.
Then I will declare him openly to the Church, and in this manner I will say: "Loving friends, I declare unto you, how that N. N. hath been admonished: first, by myself in private, afterwards also by two chaplains, thirdly, by two aldermen and churchwardens, and those of the a.s.sembly: yet notwithstanding he will not desist from his sinful kind of life. Wherefore I earnestly desire you to a.s.sist and aid me, to kneel down with me, and let us pray against him, and deliver him over to the Devil."
Luther did not mean that this should be done all at once; but that a day should be appointed for the congregation to meet for joint consultation, and according to the resolutions pa.s.sed to choose and commission such and such persons to wait on the offender, and to exhort, persuade and threaten him in the name of the congregation: then, if after due time allowed, this proved fruitless, to kneel down with the minister, &c.
Surely, were it only feasible, nothing could be more desirable. But alas! it is not compatible with a Church national, the congregations of which are therefore not gathered nor elected, or with a Church established by law; for law and discipline are mutually destructive of each other, being the same as involuntary and voluntary penance.
Chap. xxii. p. 290.
Wicliffe and Huss opposed and a.s.saulted the manner of life and conversation in Popedom. But I chiefly do oppose and resist their doctrine; I affirm roundly and plainly that they teach not aright.
Thereto am I called. I take the goose by the neck, and set the knife to the throat. When I can maintain that the Pope"s doctrine is false, (which I have proved and maintained), then I will easily prove and maintain that their manner of life is evil.
This is a remark of deep insight: "verum vere Lutheranum".
Ib. p. 291.
Ambition and pride (said Luther), are the rankest poison in the Church when they are possessed by preachers. Zuinglius thereby was misled, who did what pleased himself * * * He wrote, "Ye honorable and good princes must pardon me, in that I give you not your t.i.tles; for the gla.s.s windows are as well ill.u.s.trious as ye."
One might fancy, in the Vision-of-Mirza style, that all the angry, contemptuous, haughty expressions of good and zealous men, gallant staff-officers in the army of Christ, formed a rick of straw and stubble, which at the last day is to be divided into more or fewer hayc.o.c.ks, according to the number of kind and unfeignedly humble and charitable thoughts and speeches that had intervened, and that these were placed in a pile, leap-frog fashion, in the narrow road to the gate of Paradise; and burst into flame as the zeal of the individual approached,--so that he must leap over and through them. Now I cannot help thinking, that this dear man of G.o.d, heroic Luther, will find more opportunities of showing his agility, and reach the gate in a greater sweat and with more blisters "a parte post" than his brother hero, Zuinglius. I guess that the comments of the latter on the Prophets will be found almost sterile in these tiger-lilies and brimstone flowers of polemic rhetoric, compared with the controversy of the former with our Henry VIII., his replies to the Pope"s Bulls, and the like.
By the by, the joke of the "gla.s.s windows" is lost in the translation.
The German for ill.u.s.trious is "durchlauchtig", that is, transparent or translucent.
Ib.
When we leave to G.o.d his name, his kingdom and will, then will he also give unto us our daily bread, and will remit our sins, and deliver us from the devil and all evil. Only his honor he will have to himself.
A brief but most excellent comment on the Lord"s Prayer.
Ib. p. 297.
There was never any that understood the Old Testament so well as St.
Paul, except only John the Baptist.
I cannot conjecture what Luther had in his mind when he made this exception.
Chap. XXVII. p. 335.
I could wish (said Luther) that the Princes and States of the Empire would make an a.s.sembly, and hold a council and a union both in doctrine and ceremonies, so that every one might not break in and run on with such insolency and presumption according to his own brains, as already is begun, whereby many good hearts are offended.
Strange heart of man! Would Luther have given up the doctrine of justification by faith alone, had the majority of the Council decided in favor of the Arminian scheme? If not, by what right could he expect OEcolampadius or Zuinglius to recant their convictions respecting the Eucharist, or the Baptists theirs on Infant Baptism, to the same authority? In fact, the wish expressed in this pa.s.sage must be considered as a mere flying thought shot out by the mood and feeling of the moment, a sort of conversational flying-fish that dropped as soon as the moisture of the fins had evaporated. The paragraph in p. 336, of what Councils ought to order, should be considered Luther"s genuine opinion.
Ib. p. 337.
The council of Nice, held after the Apostles" time, (said Luther) was the very best and purest; but soon after in the time of the Emperor Constantine, it was weakened by the Arians.
What Arius himself meant, I do not know: what the modern Arians teach, I utterly condemn; but that the great council of Ariminum was either Arian or heretical I could never discover, or descry any essential difference between its decisions and the Nicene; though I seem to find a serious difference of the pseudo-Athanasian Creed from both. If there be a difference between the Councils of Nicea and Ariminum, it perhaps consists in this;--that the Nicene was the more anxious to a.s.sert the equal Divinity in the Filial subordination; the Ariminian to maintain the Filial subordination in the equal Divinity. In both there are three self-subsistent and only one self-originated:--which is the substance of the idea of the Trinity, as faithfully worded as is compatible with the necessary inadequacy of words to the expression of ideas, that is, spiritual truths that can only be spiritually discerned. [4]
18th August, 1826.
Chap. XXVIII. p. 347.
G.o.d"s word a Lord of all Lords.
Luther every where identifies the living Word of G.o.d with the written word, and rages against Bullinger, who contended that the latter is the word of G.o.d only as far as and for whom it is the vehicle of the former.
To this Luther replies: "My voice, the vehicle of my words, does not cease to be my voice, because it is ignorantly or maliciously misunderstood." Yea! (might Bullinger have rejoined) the instance were applicable and the argument valid, if we were previously a.s.sured that all and every part of the Old and New Testament is the voice of the divine Word. But, except by the Spirit, whence are we to ascertain this?
Not from the books themselves; for not one of them makes the pretension for itself, and the two or three texts, which seem to a.s.sert it, refer only to the Law and the Prophets, and no where enumerate the books that were given by inspiration: and how obscure the history of the formation of the Canon, and how great the difference of opinion respecting its different parts, what scholar is ignorant?
Chap. XXIX. p. 349.
"Patres, quamquam saepe errant, tamen venerandi propter testimonium fidei."
Although I learn from all this chapter, that Luther was no great Patrician, (indeed he was better employed), yet I am nearly, if not wholly of his mind respecting the works of the Fathers. Those which appear to me of any great value are valuable chiefly for those articles of Christian Faith which are, as it were, "ante Christum" JESUM, namely, the Trinity, and the primal Incarnation spoken of by John i, 10. But in the main I should perhaps go even farther than Luther; for I cannot conceive any thing more likely than that a young man of strong and active intellect, who has no fears, or suffers no fears of worldly prudence to cry, Halt! to him in his career of consequential logic, and who has been "innutritus et juratus" in the Grotio-Paleyan scheme of Christian evidence, and who has been taught by the men and books, which he has been bred up to regard as authority, to consider all inward experiences as fanatical delusions;--I say, I can scarcely conceive such a young man to make a serious study of the Fathers of the first four or five centuries without becoming either a Romanist or a Deist. Let him only read Petavius and the different Patristic and Ecclesiastico -historical tracts of Semler, and have no better philosophy than that of Locke, no better theology than that of Arminius and Bishop Jeremy Taylor, and I should tremble for his belief. Yet why tremble for a belief which is the very antipode of faith? Better for such a man to precipitate himself on to the utmost goal: for then perhaps he may in the repose of intellectual activity feel the nothingness of his prize, or the wretchedness of it; and then perhaps the inward yearning after a religion may make him ask;--"Have I not mistaken the road at the outset?
Am I sure that the Reformers, Luther and the rest collectively, were fanatics?"
Ib. p. 351.
"Take no care what ye shall eat". As though that commandment did not hinder the carping and caring for the daily bread.
For "caring," read, "anxiety!" "Sit tibi curae, non autem solicitudini, panis quotidia.n.u.s".
Ib. p. 351.
Even so it was with Ambrose: he wrote indeed well and purely, was more serious in writing than Austin, who was amiable and mild. * * *
Fulgentius is the best poet, and far above Horace both with sentences, fair speeches and good actions; he is well worthy to be ranked and numbered with and among the poets.
"Der Teufel"! Surely the epithets should be reversed. Austin"s mildness--the "durus pater infantum"! And the "super"-Horatian effulgence of Master Foolgentius! O Swan! thy critical cygnets are but goslings.
N.B. I have, however, since I wrote the above, heard Mr. J. Hookham Frere speak highly of Fulgentius.