# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 05 17_S75
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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Yet how Luther, in this matter, showed himself not even in the remotest degree a flattering servant of the princes is made abundantly clear by how he speaks against the princes in that same treatise. He says there: "In the first place, we have no one on earth to thank for this mischief and rebellion but you princes and lords — especially you blind bishops, mad priests, and monks — who to this very day, hardened as you are, do not cease to rage and rave against the holy Gospel, even though you know it is right and cannot refute it. Besides this, in temporal government you do nothing more than flay and fleece in order to maintain your pomp and arrogance, until the poor common man can and will bear it no longer. The sword is at your throat; yet you think you sit so firmly in the saddle that no one will be able to unseat you. Such false security and hardened presumption will break your neck; you will see it. I have proclaimed it to you many times before: beware of the saying in Psalm 107:40: "He poureth contempt upon princes." You strive after this and want to be struck upon the head, and no warning or admonition will help. Well then, since you are the cause of this wrath of God, it will without doubt also come upon you, if you do not mend your ways in time. The signs in the heavens and the wonders on earth, dear lords, bode you no good, and no good shall happen to you either. — For this you should know, dear lords: God so brings it about that men neither can, nor will, nor should endure your raging any longer. You must change and yield to God's Word; if you will not do it in a friendly, willing way, then you will have to do it through violent and ruinous force. If these peasants do not do it, others will, and even if you strike them all down, they are not yet beaten, for God will raise up others. For He will strike you, and He shall strike you. It is not peasants, dear lords, who set themselves against you; it is God Himself who sets Himself against you, to visit your raging upon you. — If I wished to take revenge on you, I could now laugh up my sleeve and watch the peasants, or even join them and help make matters worse. But from that may my God preserve me, as He has done thus far. Therefore, my dear lords, whether you are friends or enemies, I humbly beg you, do not despise my faithfulness, poor a man as I am. Do not despise this rebellion either, I beg you. Not that I think or fear that they will prove too powerful for you, nor do I wish you to be afraid of them on that account; rather, fear God; consider His wrath: if He means to punish you as you deserve, as I fear, then He will punish you, even if the peasants were a hundred times fewer than they are — He can well turn stones into peasants, and back again, and through one peasant strangle a hundred of your own, so that all your armor and strength will prove insufficient. — Do not enter into

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strife with them, for you do not know where the end will be. Seek first an amicable settlement. — They have drawn up twelve articles, some of which are so fair and just that they take away your good name before God and the world, and make true Psalm 107, verse 40, that they pour contempt upon the princes. — The first article, in which they desire to hear the Gospel and to have the right to choose a pastor, you cannot in fairness deny. The other articles, which point out bodily burdens such as death-duties, taxes, and the like, are likewise fair and just. For authority is not instituted so that it may seek its own profit and willfulness at the expense of its subjects, but so that it may provide benefit and the best for those subject to it. Now it is surely not bearable in the long run to tax and flay people so. What good does it do if a peasant's field yielded as many gold guilders as it does stalks and grains, when the authorities would only take that much more, and use it to make their pomp ever greater, and squander the wealth on clothes, gluttony, drinking, building, and the like, as though it were mere chaff? One would indeed have to curb such pomp and stop such spending, so that a poor man too might be able to keep something for himself." (See "Luther's Admonition to Peace, concerning the Twelve Articles of the Peasantry of Swabia. 1525." Works, Halle ed., XVI, 58.)

Yet Luther sought to calm the storm not only in writing; he also traveled personally to Thuringia and sought here, through preaching, to hold back the outbreak of the threatening storm; but he succeeded only here and there, and only for a short time. The peasants became so enraged against him, because he would not approve of everything, that he twice found himself in mortal danger. No admonitions could bring them to their senses; rather, they only drove one another ever further into every kind of violence. Wherever they gained power, they deposed the authorities without further ado, robbed, plundered, burned, and set fire wherever they went, and destroyed more than two hundred castles and many monasteries. Then Luther issued the extremely severe treatise "Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants," and committed the matter to God. The princes, whose peaceable representations had likewise all proved in vain, and whom Münzer had reviled in the most vulgar manner, finally united to check the impending disaster by force of arms. Thus the entire band of rebellious peasants, eight thousand men strong, was on May 5, 1525, near Frankenhausen partly cut to pieces and partly taken captive, and Münzer himself was beheaded shortly afterward. Although Luther had foreseen this outcome, he does not bear the guilt for the cruelties committed on the one side or the other, nor for the blood that was shed, for the rebellion arose not from Luther's teaching but from Münzer's; not in Lutheran places, but in papist ones; not so much on account of religious as of civil oppressions; moreover, Luther had at first most earnestly advised an amicable settlement to both parties, and had frankly rebuked the wrongdoing of both. In this too, Luther proved himself a servant of God in the word of truth, in the power of God, with the weapons of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, through honor and dishonor, through evil report and good report, as a deceiver and yet true. 2 Corinthians 6:7-8.
(To be continued.)

It Is a Lack of Childlike Faith When One Will Not Believe the High Mysteries of Christian Doctrine.
(Taken from Luther's sermons on 1 Corinthians 15:35 etc. Collected Works, Halle ed., VIII, 1420, etc.)

Whoever believes that God is the almighty Creator of heaven and earth also believes that He can raise the dead. But when we doubt, it is a sign that we still lack this childlike faith. For whoever disputes and doubts the article of the resurrection does not believe that God is the almighty Creator of all creatures; indeed, he believes nothing at all. For because he does not believe God's work — that God can and will, according to His Word, raise the dead — he also believes nothing of God's power, might, majesty, and glory, and thus denies God altogether in truth, because he denies His works. What is lacking today in our fanatics and factious spirits, the Anabaptists and despisers of the sacrament, but that they do not know, nor wish to know, the childlike faith: I believe in God the Father, almighty Creator of heaven and earth? "Ah, what is water?" say the Anabaptists; "water is water: how is it possible that water should wash a man of his sins and save him from death?" These do not believe that there is a God, for they deny His work. They indeed hear with their ears and speak with their mouths the words: I believe in God, the almighty Creator; but in their hearts they do not believe it. For since He Himself says: Whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved (Mark 16:16), and since all things are possible for Him, as the one almighty Creator of all things, why then should it not be possible that the water, joined with the Word, should cleanse a man from sin and save him? For with God nothing is impossible, as the angel Gabriel says to Mary. Luke 1:37.

Carlstadt, too, lacked this article. "I shall never let myself be persuaded," he said, "to believe that God opens heaven and lets His Son down and encloses Him in the bread that is distributed in the sacrament."

But this is what wretched unbelief does. What, then, is the cause of such unbelief? The cause is that one does not hold God to be almighty; for even reason can recognize this much: if one grants that God is almighty, one must also grant that everything God says can and must happen. Now since God is almighty, having created heaven and earth