the forgiveness of sin. Nor did he indeed then hesitate, from the principle that simple faith in God's promise, without works, can procure forgiveness of sins, to draw the conclusion, which spontaneously presents itself, that neither popes nor bishops can contribute any thing else to the object, except to announce God's forgiveness to the man. This conclusion, which must then have seemed incredible and which still so strikes many ears,* he carried out in the most definite language and with an assiduity which would most cautiously avert all mis-conception and preclude all limitation. "In the sacrament of penance and the forgiveness of guilt," says he, p. 64,"neither pope nor bishop does more than the most ordinary priest; nay where there is no priest, any christian, though a woman or child, does just as much. For any Christian can say to you, God forgiveth thy sins in Christ's name! And you can lay hold of that word with a firm faith, as though God spoke it to you, and you are certainly forgiven in this faith. So absolutely does the whole thing depend on faith in God's word. And this power of forgiving sins," he says further on, " is nothing else but for a priest joyfully to pronounce a decision, (nay, so important is it, that any Christian may say it to another, if he sees him troubled and anxious in his sins), be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven! And whoever receives and believes it as a declaration of God, to him they are certainly forgiven. But if there is not faith, it avails nothing, even though God and Christ himself should pronounce the decision." On this one principle, that faith alone procures the forgiveness of sins, rested, not only his whole system, but also the distinction between his and the scholastic system; and hence may fully be explained the reason why, through his whole life, he insisted upon it with a firmness so inflexible as to be unwilling that this idea should ever be so much as presented in any other point of view but that in which his own soul first descried it; and why he often spoke, in such strikingly severe expressions, concerning that unbelief which relies on good works, and, in this very discourse, explained this unbelief to be the sin against the Holy Ghost, which can never be forgiven, as it renders all other sins

* The good Löscher still felt himself bound, in order to remove all scandal out of the way, to annex to the position in which Luther maintains this conclusion, the following note: "Luther does not here deny, that the ministers of the church ministerially (Staxovixws) confer the remission of sin." Lösch. T. I. p. 440.

unpardonable. This principle seemed indeed powerfully enough to fortify his system against every attack. But now the time was come when he had no longer to defend it merely against the assaults of individual opponents, but the suppressing hand of a higher power.

End of the first book.

REMARKS BY THE TRANSLATOR.

Without entering on any extended analysis of the character of Luther or of his doctrines or his achievements, it may not be improper here to subjoin one or two remarks. The preceding extract has brought us more acquainted with the early life of the great reformer, as well as with the peculiar circumstances amid which the Reformation itself took its rise. It would doubtless be interesting and instructive to most of the readers of the Repository, to go on with our author still further in his masterly development of the progress of this great change in the opinions and the lives of so large a portion of the christian world. But there is not room for this in a miscellaneous periodical. The subsequent facts, too, in the Reformer's life, are already better known to our reading community.

One of the first and most important remarks to be made in view of the preceding extract, regards the genuine and deep piety of the man whom we revere, under God, as the grand cause of the Reformation. We have heard so much of his headstrong passion, and of his ambition too, from historians and declaimers who had but little heart to sympathize with him or to care for his cause, that many readers hardly know whether to regard Luther as a man of distinguished piety, or of even any piety at all. Hume, and other writers before him on the continent, would gladly have us believe that the Reformation owes its birth to the ambition of a disappointed monk. But never

*That the conclusion was even at that time drawn, from these severe expressions, that Luther disparaged good works, is evident from one passage of this very sermon where he rebuts this reproach. "That no one may again accuse me of forbidding good works, I say, that 1 one should most deeply sorrow, and grieve, and repent, and perform good works."

VOL. X. No. 28.

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was there a more groundless calumny. It was born from an inexpressible love and longing for the truth, and nurtured to its manhood by an equal longing for the spread of truth. The early scenes between Staupitz and Luther, evince most clearly the very soul of the Reformer and the spring of his subsequent movements. His feelings were, indeed, a torrent — sometimes, a tornado. But they were ever guided in what he at least conscientiously believed to be the course of duty. And without such a tide of feeling, what could he have effected in such a day! But machinations, plots, ambitious schemes, he knew not except as he beheld and abhorred them in his adversaries. In fact he had, in his early efforts, just no plans at all, besides the one purpose of doing what he could to purify the church in which he was born and which he profoundly revered.

Luther had much of native veneration in his character; much of what is sometimes called, in the looser sense, native religious principle. He was born to revere; and what he had early revered, he wished always to revere. Hence his tenacious respect for the pope, on to the very eve of his excommunication. Hence, too, his willingness to be surrounded by the old images, as long as he lived. This temperament prepared him, when his heart was changed, for the most profound devotedness to the cause of God and of truth, while it utterly unfitted him for projects of guile and ambition.

Another remark which may here be hazarded, is, that Luther, as a reformer, was much better fitted for the task of demolition than for the work of construction. Whether this was the effect of his temperament, his education, or his circumstances, or of all combined, we need not here stand minutely to inquire. The fact itself, if fact it be, is one of no small importance, when estimating the degree of authority due to his positive opinions. Step by step, Luther was led to see the abominations by which he was surrounded. By reading the word of God and the early fathers of the church, his eyes were gradually opened to the usurpations and corruptions of popery. And as he saw one thing after another to be an abomination, he put forth his hand to its demolition. But what to erect in its place, he did not so well know. He saw, for instance, that transubstantiation was an absurd figment; but, induced perhaps by his characteristic principle of veneration, he could not think of pronouncing the consecrated elements the mere emblems of the

body and blood of his Lord. The worship of images he also saw to be wrong; but yet he did not wish to part with their presence, dangerous and beguiling as might be such aids to devotion. He saw, likewise, the error of the Pelagian and scholastic notion of free-will; and here, as he found nothing to venerate in unregenerate man, instead of stopping half-way, he fell to the opposite extreme, and pronounced the human will in such a state of "slavery and impotence" as would seem to annihilate the very existence of will, and with it, the possibility of either sin or holiness. "Free will, after sin," said he, "is a thing merely in name, and while it does what it can, it sins mortally.' He saw, in noon-day light, the absurdities of papal phariseeism, salvation by human works; nay, he felt, in the depths of his own soul, our perfect dependence on Christ for a free pardon. But while he thus saw, that the pope's pardon was a figment, saints' merits a lie, and his own works a broken reed, and that Christ's pardon must come simply through faith, yet his speculative views of the very essence of this faith, strange as it may now seem to us, were at a wide remove from the simplicity of the gospel, and were in fact but too deeply tinctured with manifest absurdity. I say his speculative views; for we cannot doubt that his heart was pervaded by this true faith; and it was only a casual though striking coincidence in his own religious experience, occurring in his half-enlightened state, that led him to the mistake which his mind afterwards retained with such characteristic pertinacity.

But this last point is of sufficient importance in its nature and its subsequent effects among a portion of protestants, to demand a moment's further attention. Says Luther, near the close of our extract (p. 292,)" Any Christian can say to you, God forgiveth thy sins in Christ's name. And you can lay hold of that word with a firm faith, as though God spoke it to you, and you are certainly forgiven." The sequel leaves no room for doubt as to his meaning. The very essence of the first act of faith, is a firm belief in the individual that his sins are forgiven for Christ's sake. And this faith is the procuring cause of their pardon. Such was his view;-a view at once unsupported by Scripture, and deeply fraught with absurdity, as well as mischief. For, if faith is the sole procuring cause of pardon, (which was the cardinal doctrine of Luther and all the Reformers), then pardon cannot precede faith, either in time or in the order of nature. For me, then, to be called upon, as the first

exercise of faith, to believe my sins already pardoned, is absurd. And for me thus to believe it, instead of being an act of faith, would be only "to believe a lie."

From this early egg of antinomianism, have resulted, from time to time, some rather numerous and noxious broods of error. Nor is the progeny yet extinct, though Edwards, Bellamy, and other New England writers have done much to exterminate them from this portion of the protestant churches. Though Luther was not himself an antinomian, it is deeply to be regretted that such an error should be able, with any plausibility, to trace its pedigree to so high a source. And where antinomianism does not by any means appear in its full form, yet this single mistake as to the essence of faith, is one of the most perilous heresies to the souls of men. Should a sinner, without any of the sorrow for sin on which Luther insisted so much, (and which went in his own preaching as a ready antidote to his error), once fancy his sins pardoned, and then be told, on high authority, that this fancy was the very essence of faith, what could be more perilous to his prospect of a saving change! And how often do the preachers of the gospel in fact find, that the first thing which a convert has to mention in regard to the reasons of his hope,' is the impression he has received, that his sins were pardoned! This, as was doubtless signally the fact in the case of Luther, may be a powerful impression attendant on a saving change; but in itself, it can be neither such change, nor even any proof that such a change has taken place.

It may further be remarked, in respect to Luther, that his chief value to the world, is to be found in the devout, bold, persevering spirit that he brought to the work of reformation, and the powerful hand with which he was enabled to prosecute it. Just such a man was needed to bring forth into distinct and embodied existence a class of men who had been increasing in the Romish church from the days of Wiclif, and immensely to increase their numbers, and lead them on to victory. But while he gave distinctness and effect to the doctrinal knowledge already found among these men, he added but little to the stock of this knowledge. While he was the bold and able commander which the emergency required, like most of such commanders, though unlike our own Washington, he possessed but a moderate share of what is most needed for organizing and guiding a peaceful community.

And yet, we may finally remark, Luther was no radical.