# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1856_S352
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

352 Melanchthon and Luther on Slavery.

...intendent Brömel), on account of the vigorous life in the congregations
and the right relationship of these to their pastors, stands foremost among
all Lutheran lands."

Melanchthon and Luther on Slavery.

When, in the year 1525, the Peasants' Revolt broke out in Swabia, there
appeared the well-known "Twelve Articles of the Peasantry," in which the
demands of the insurgent peasants were set down. It states there: "Thirdly,
it has hitherto been the custom that men have held us as their own property
— which is a matter for pity, seeing that Christ has redeemed and purchased
us all with his precious outpoured blood, the shepherd fully as much as the
highest, none excepted. Therefore it is found by Scripture that we are and
wish to be free. Not that we wish to be wholly free and to have no authority
over us — that Scripture does not teach us."

To this Melanchthon first wrote the following:

"It is indeed an outrage and an act of violence that they are unwilling to
remain bondsmen. But as for their invoking Scripture, that Christ has made
us free, this is spoken of spiritual freedom — namely, that we are assured
that through him our sin is taken away without any satisfaction of our own,
and that we may boldly look to God for good things, and ask and hope for
them, and that Christ gives the Holy Spirit to his own, whereby they resist
the devil, so that the devil cannot cast them into sin as he drives the
godless, whose hearts he holds in his power, into murder, adultery,
blasphemy, etc. Christian freedom, therefore, stands in the heart and cannot
be seen with fleshly eyes. Outwardly a Christian bears, patiently and
gladly, every worldly and civil order and makes use of it, as of food and
clothing; he can be a bondsman and a subject, and he can likewise be noble
and a ruler; he can order himself by Saxon law or by Roman law in the use
and division of goods. Such things do not at all disturb faith; indeed the
Gospel requires that one keep such worldly ordinances for the sake of
peace. Paul, to the Ephesians, chapter 6, verses 5, 6, 7: "'Servants, be
obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and
trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eyeservice,
as menpleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from
the heart,' etc.; and to the Colossians 3:22: 'Servants, obey in all things
your masters according to the flesh, etc. He that doeth wrong shall receive
for the wrong that he hath done.' Thus even Joseph himself was a bondsman
in Egypt for a long time, and many other saints as well." (See Luther's
Works, Halle edition, Tomus XVI, pp. 26, 27, 48.)

Against this same article of the peasantry Luther wrote the following:

"'There shall be no bondsman, since Christ has made us all free.' What
sort of thing is this? This is to make Christian freedom altogether a
matter of the flesh. Did not Abraham and the other patriarchs and prophets
also have bondsmen? Read St. Paul, what he teaches concerning servants,
who at that time were all in bondage. This article, therefore, stands directly
against the Gospel and is robbery, in that it would take from every lord
the body that has become his own. For a bondsman can very well be a
Christian and possess Christian freedom, just as a prisoner or a sick man
is a Christian and yet is not free. This article seeks to make all men free
and to turn the spiritual kingdom of Christ into an outward, worldly
kingdom, which is impossible. For a worldly kingdom cannot stand where
there is no inequality among persons, so that some are free, some are
captive, some are lords, some are subjects, etc. As St. Paul says, Galatians
3:28, that in Christ lord and servant are one thing. On this my lord and
friend, Urban Rhegius, has written well and sufficiently; there you may
read further." (Ibid., pp. 85, 86.)