Luther Feared Lutherans “Even Worse Than Papists”

From Martin Luther’s Thirty-Second Sermon, on Matthew  23:14, preached sometime “after March 27 and before September 25, 1538” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 68 [2014], 168-173):

Now people do not give anything at all when the Gospel is being preached and people can pray correctly. Now they can find a pastor who does more than all the pope’s bishops, but they give him only about ten gulden. No one wants to give now, and if we did not have the stolen property of the pope, the preachers would have hardly anything to eat. But that is not all; people also gladly take to themselves all that the poor pastors have for getting an income. People used to open their moneybags generously, but now they would gladly snatch the morsel from the mouth of the pastors. The princes have no lack, but the noblemen and magistrates also take away from the pastors their leftover stale crusts of bread, and yet they want to be regarded as being good evangelical people. . . .

Therefore, we are worse than the pope, who steals from the rich widows, emperors, kings, princes, and lords. We rob from the poor beggars, their children, and widows, and this is done by us even in this principality. Therefore, we set ourselves in opposition to the Gospel even more disgracefully than in the lands of Duke George or the margrave. That is devouring the beggars, guests, and poor widows. We can also cry out in woe over this, for they devour flesh and bone. While lamenting over the Papists, we should also not forget ourselves.

I fear that we fool around with the Gospel such that we are even worse before God than the Papists. For if someone is going to steal, then it is better to steal from a rich man than from a poor beggar or orphan who has nothing more than a bite of bread. . . .

[You may say,] “The people should not be scolded!” Christ can also preach well. But here He takes vinegar and forgets the honey and says: “Woe, woe to you peasants, townspeople, and nobility, who scrabble, scrape, and grab up everything for yourselves, and yet want to be regarded as good evangelical people. See to it that the Gospel is not only on your lips, while your deeds are doing the opposite. (pp. 171-173; my bolding)

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Even the anti-Catholic Protestant Reformed polemicist and controversialist James Swan, in a rare candid moment regarding his heroes, lamented:

Out of all the quotes used to prove Luther’s despondency over the effects of the Reformation, this one comes closest to presenting Luther’s grave concern over the state of the early Protestant church. Luther was disheartened by the lack of funds to support Protestant ministers. While Luther viewed the general stealing of the Papists as horrible, he likewise chastised his own people for lack of giving, which in essence was a form of stealing. . . .

Luther often complained about the Wittenberg church. He threatened, more than once, that he would either leave this congregation or no longer preach to them.

The editors of Luther’s Works in another volume add:

The tensions between Luther and the Wittenberg congregation came to a head in Luther’s resolution during the summer of 1545 to abandon Wittenberg and to retire with Katy and his family to the countryside, until he was finally persuaded by the petitions of the elector and the university to return. But though dramatic, Luther’s brief self-imposed exile from Wittenberg during the last year of his life was in fact not unprecedented. In 1530, before his departure for the Coburg during the Diet of Augsburg, Luther had announced that he would not preach in Wittenberg anymore, and similar threats, sometimes carried through for several weeks at a time, were repeated both before and after. . . .

In his next-to-last sermon of February 7, 1546, Luther complained of the devotion of the Christians in Eisleben:

If you do go to the Sacrament, you go and come away again like a block of wood, or you let other people go to it and stay away yourself. So, too, you hear God’s Word and that God’s Son has died for you with no more devotion than if someone had said to you that the Turk had slain the sultan or the emperor had captured the king of France or some other tale, and you think it has no bearing on you, and you are as cold as ice and do not enkindle your heart nor take any thought for your soul or eternal life. That is what careless, wild people do, who take no thought for God. (Vol. 58, xx-xxii)

Related Reading

Martin Luther: “Our manner of life is as evil as is that of the papists” [12-29-07]

Luther on Early Lutherans: “Ingrates” Who Deserve God’s “Wrath” [2-28-10]

Luther on Early Lutheran Degeneracy & Bad Witness [3-2-10]

Luther: Monks & Priests More “Earnest” Than Lutherans [11-10-11]

Luther: I Was a Better Christian as a Catholic [6-5-24]