The first, A, is that every community on earth must have one visible head under Christ. This is simply not true. How many principalities, castles, cities, and houses we find where two brothers or lords reign--and with equal authority. The Roman empire governed itself for a long time, and very well, without the one head, and many other countries in the world did the same. How does the Swiss confederacy govern itself at present? Thus in the government of the world there is not one single overlord, yet we are all one human race, descended from the one father, Adam. The kingdom of France has its own king, Hungary its own, Poland, Denmark, and every other kingdom its own, and yet they are one people, the temporal estate in Christendom, without one common head; and still this does not cause these kingdoms to perish. And if there were no government constituted in just this manner, who could or would prevent a community from choosing not one, but many overlords, all clothed with equal power? Therefore it is a very poor procedure to measure the things which are of God's appointing by such vacillating analogies of worldly things, when they do not hold even in the appointments of men. But suppose I should grant this dreamer that his dream is true, and that no community can exist without one visible head; how does it follow that it must likewise be so in the Church?[21] I know very well that the poor dreamer has a certain conception, according to which a Christian community is the same as any other temporal community.[22] He thus reveals plainly that he has never learned to know what Christendom, or the Christian community, really is. I had not believed it possible to meet such dense, massive, stubborn error and ignorance in any man, much less in a saint of Leipzig.
For the benefit, therefore, of this numskull, and of those led astray by him, I must first of all explain what is meant by these things--the Church,[23] and the One Head of the Church.[23] I must talk bluntly, however, and use the same words which they have so barbarously perverted.
[Sidenote: What is the Church?]
[Sidenote: The Communion of Saints] [Sidenote: The Unity of the Church Not External] The Scriptures speak of the Church[23] quite simply, and use the term in only one sense; these men have added and brought into general use two more. The first use, according to the Scriptures, is this, that the Church[23] is called the assembly of all the believers in Christ upon earth, just as we pray in the Creed: "I believe in the Holy Ghost, a communion of saints." This community or assembly consists of all those who live in true faith, hope and love; so that the essence, life and nature of the Church[23] is not a bodily assembly, but an assembly of hearts in one faith, as St. Paul says, Ephesians iv, "One baptism, one faith, one Lord." [Eph. 4:5] Thus, though they be a thousand miles apart in body, yet they are called an assembly in spirit because each one preaches, believes, hopes, loves, and lives like the other. So we sing of the Holy Ghost: "Thou, who through divers tongues gatherest together the nations in the unity of the faith."[24] That means in reality a spiritual unity, because of which men are called a communion of saints. And this unity is of itself sufficient to make a Church,[23] and without it no unity, be it of place, of time, of person, of work, or of whatever else, makes a Church.[23] On this point we must hear the word of Christ, Who, when Pilate asked Him concerning His kingdom, answered: "My kingdom is not of this world." [John 18:36] This is indeed a dear passage, in which the Church[23] is made separate from all temporal communities, as not being anything external. And this blind Romanist makes of it an external community, like any other. Christ says even more clearly, Luke xvii, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here, or lo, there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you." [Luke 17:20, 21] I am astounded, that such strong, clear words of Christ are treated as a farce by these Romanists. For by these words it is clear to every one that the kingdom of God (for so He calls His Church[25]) is not at Rome, nor is it bound to Rome or any other place, but it is where there is faith in the heart, be a man at Rome, or here, or elsewhere. It is a nauseating lie,[26] and Christ is made a liar when it is said that the Church[25], is in Rome, or is bound to Rome--or even that the head and the authority are there by divine right.
Moreover, in Matthew xxiv. He foretold the gross deception which now rules under the name of the Roman Church, when He says: "Many false prophets and false Christs shall come in My name, saying: I am Christ; and shall deceive many, and show great signs, that if possible they shall deceive the very elect. Wherefore, if they shall say unto you: Behold, in the secret chambers is Christ, believe it not; behold, He is in the desert, go not forth. Behold, I have told you before." [Matt. 24:24-26] Is this not a cruel error, when the unity of the Christian Church[25], separated by Christ Himself from all material and temporal cities and places, and transferred to spiritual realms, is included by these preachers of dreams in material communities,[27] which must of necessity be bound to localities and places. How is it possible, or whose reason can grasp it, that spiritual unity and material unity should be one and the same? There are those among Christians who are in the external assembly and unity, who yet by their sins exclude themselves from the inner, spiritual unity.
Therefore, whosoever maintains that an external assembly or an outward unity makes a Church,[25] sets forth arbitrarily what is merely his own opinion, and whoever endeavors to prove it by the Scriptures, brings divine truth to the support of his lies, and makes God a false witness, just as does this miserable Romanist, who explains everything that is written concerning the Church[28] as meaning the outward show of Roman power; and yet he cannot deny that the large majority of these people, particularly in Rome itself, because of unbelief and evil lives, is not in the spiritual unity, i. e., the true Church.[28] For if to be in the external Roman unity made men true Christians, there would be no sinners among them, neither would they need faith nor the grace of God to make them Christians; this external unity would be enough.
[Sidenote: What Makes a Christian] From this we conclude, and the conclusion is inevitable, that just as being in the Roman unity does not make one a Christian, so being outside of that unity does not make one a heretic or unchristian. I should like to hear who would dispute this. For that which is essential must make a true Christian; but if it does not make a true Christian, it cannot be essential; just as it does not make me a true Christian to be at Wittenberg or to be at Leipzig. Now it is clear that external fellowship with the Roman communion[29] does not make men Christians, and so the lack of that fellowship certainly does not make a man a heretic or an apostate. Therefore it must also be false, that it is a divine command to be in connection with the Roman Church.[28] For whosoever keepeth one divine command, keepeth them all, and none can be kept without keeping the others[30]. Therefore it is an open and blasphemous lie against the Holy Ghost to say that the external unity under Roman authority is the fulfilment of a divine commandment, since there are so many in that unity who neither regard nor fulfil any of the Divine commandments. Hence, to be in this place or that, does not make a heretic: but to be without true faith makes a man a heretic.
Again, it is clear that to be a member of the Roman communion[31] does not mean to be in true faith, and to be outside of it does not mean to be in unbelief; otherwise those within it would all be believers and truly saved, for no one article of faith is believed without all the other articles.
Therefore all those who make the Christian communion[32] a material and outward thing, like other communities, are in reality Jews (for the Jews likewise wait for their Messiah to establish an external kingdom at a certain definite place, namely, Jerusalem), and thus sacrifice the faith, which alone makes the kingdom of Christ a thing spiritual and of the heart.
[Sidenote: The Head of the Church] Again, if every temporal community is called after its head, and we say of this city, it is Electoral, and of that, it is Ducal, and of another, it is Frankish; then by right all Christendom should be called Roman, or Petrine, or Papal. But why, then, is it called Christendom? Why are we called Christians, if not from our head, although we are still upon earth? Hereby it is shown that for Christendom there is no other head, even upon earth, than Christ, for it has no other name than the name of Christ For this reason St. Luke tells us that the disciples were at first called Antiochians, but soon this was changed and they were called Christians. [Acts 11:26][33] Furthermore, though a man consists of two natures, namely, body and soul, yet he is not reckoned a member of the Church according to his body, but according to his soul, nay, according to his faith. Otherwise it might be said that a man is a nobler Christian than a woman, because his physical structure is superior to that of a woman, or that a man is a greater Christian than a child, a healthy person a stronger Christian than an invalid; lords and ladies, the rich and powerful, better Christians than servants, maids, and the poor and lowly; whereas Paul writes, Galatians v, "In Christ is neither male nor female, neither lord nor servant, neither Jew nor Greek," [Gal. 3:28; 5:6] but as far as the body is concerned they are all equal. But he is the better Christian who is greater in faith, hope and love; so that it is plain that the Church[34] is a spiritual community, which can be classed with a temporal community as little as spirits with bodies, or faith with temporal possessions.
This, indeed, is true, that just as the body is a figure or image of the soul, so also the bodily community is a figure of this Christian, spiritual community, and as the bodily community has a bodily head, so the spiritual community has a spiritual head. But who would be so bereft of sense as to maintain that the soul must have a bodily head? That would be like saying that every live animal must have on its body a painted head. If this literalist (I should say, literary person) had really understood what the Church[34] is, without doubt he would have been ashamed even to contemplate such a book as his. What wonder, therefore, that from a darkened and wandering brain issues no light, but thick, black darkness St. Paul says, Colossians iii, "Our life is not on earth, but hid with Christ in God." [Col. 3:3] For if the Church were a bodily assembly, you could tell by looking at the body whether any one were Christian, Turk or Jew; just as you can tell by the body whether a person is a man, woman or child, or whether he is white or black. Again, I can tell whether one is gathered in temporal assembly with others in Leipzig, Wittenberg, or elsewhere; but I cannot tell at all whether he is a believer or not.
[Sidenote: The Church a Spiritual Thing] Whosoever would not go astray should, therefore, hold fast to this, that the Church[34] is a spiritual assembly of souls in one faith, and that no one is reckoned a Christian for his body's sake; in order that he may know that the true, real, right, essential Church[34] is a spiritual thing, and not anything external or outward, by whatever name it may be called. For one who is not a Christian may have all those other things, and they will never make him a Christian without true faith, which alone makes Christians. For this reason we are called Christian believers, and on Pentecost we sing: We beseech Thee, Holy Spirit[35], Let true faith our portion be.
It is in this wise, and never in any other, that the Holy Scriptures speak of the Holy Church and of Christendom.
[Sidneote: The External Church] Beyond that, another way of speaking of Christendom has come into use. According to this, the name Church[36] is given to an assembly in a house or a parish, a bishopric, an archbishopric, or the papacy, in which assembly external rites are in use, such as chanting, reading, vestments. And primarily the name of "spiritual estate" is given to the bishops, priests and members of the holy orders; not on account of their faith, which they perhaps do not have, but because they have been consecrated with an external anointing, wear crowns, use a distinctive garb, make special prayers and do special works, say mass, have their places in the choir, and attend to all such external matters of worship. But violence is done to the word "spiritual," or "Church," when it is used for such external affairs, whereas it concerns faith alone, which, working in the soul, makes right and true _spirituales_ and Christians; yet this maimer of using it has spread everywhere, to the great injury and perversion of many souls, who think that such outward show is the spiritual and only true estate in Christendom or the Church.
There is not one letter in the Holy Scriptures to show that such a purely external Church has been established by God; and I hereby challenge all those who have made this blasphemous, damnable, heretical book, or would defend it, together with all their followers, even if all the universities hold with them. If they can show me that even one letter of the Scriptures speaks of it, I am willing to recant. But I know that they cannot do it. The Canon Law and human statutes, indeed, give the name of Church or Christendom to such a thing, but that is not now before us. Therefore, for the sake of brevity and a better understanding, we shall call the two churches by different names. The first, which is the natural, essential, real and true one, let us call a spiritual, inner Christendom. The other, which is man-made and external, let us call a bodily, external Christendom: not as if we would part them asunder, but just as when I speak of a man, and call him, according to the soul, a spiritual, according to the body, a physical, man; or as the Apostle is wont to speak of the inner and of the outward man. [Rom. 7:22] Thus also the Christian assembly, according to the soul, is a communion[37] of one accord in one faith, although according to the body it cannot be assembled at one place, and yet every group is assembled in its own place. This Christendom is ruled by Canon Law and the prelates of the Church.[38] To this belong all the popes, cardinals, bishops, prelates, monks, nuns and all those who in these external things are taken to be Christians, whether they are truly Christians at heart or not. For though membership in this communion[37] does not make true Christians, because all the orders mentioned may exist without faith; nevertheless this communion is never without some who at the same time are true Christians, just as the body does not give the soul its life, and yet the soul lives in the body and, indeed, can live without the body. Those who are without faith and are outside of the first community, but are included in this second community, are dead in the sight of God, hypocrites, and but like wooden images of true Christians. And so the people of Israel were a type of the spiritual people, assembled in faith.
[Sidenote: The Church as a Building] The third use of the term applies the word Church, not to Christendom, but to the edifices erected for purposes of worship. And the word "spiritual" is so stretched as to cover temporal possessions, not the possessions which are truly spiritual because of faith, but those which are in the second or external Church,[39] and such possessions are called "spiritual" or Church possessions.[40] Again, the possessions of the laity are called "worldly," although the laymen who are in the first or spiritual Church[39] are much better than the worldly clergy and are truly spiritual. After this fashion it now goes with almost all the works and the government of the Church;[39] and the name "spiritual possessions" has been so exclusively applied to worldly possessions that now no one understands it to mean anything else, and this has gone so far that men regard neither the spiritual nor the external Church any more, and they squabble and quarrel about temporal possessions like the heathen, and say, they do it for the sake of the Church and of spiritual possessions. Such perversion and misuse of words and things has come from the Canon Law and human statutes, to the unspeakable corruption of Christendom.
[Sidneote: The Head of the Church: Christ] Now let us consider the head of Christendom. From the foregoing it follows that the first-named Christendom, which alone is the true Church, may not and cannot have Church: a head upon earth, and that no one on earth, neither bishop nor pope, can rule over it; only Christ in heaven is the head, and He ruleth alone.
[Sidenote: Why the Church Cannot Have an Earthly Head] This is proved, first of all, in this way: How can a man rule over anything which he does not know or understand? And who can know whether a man truly believes or not? Aye, if the power of the pope extended to this point, then he could take away a Christian's faith, or direct its progress, or increase it, or change it, according to his pleasure, just as Christ can do.
In the second place, it is proved by the nature of the head. For it is the nature of every head joined to a body to infuse into all its members life and feeling and activity. This will be found to be true of the heads in worldly affairs. For the ruler of a country instils into his subjects all the things which are in his own mind and will, and causes all his subjects to be of like mind and will with himself, and thus they do the work he wishes to have done, and this work is truly said to have been instilled into the subjects by the prince, for without him it would not have been done. Now no man can instil into the soul of another, nor into his own soul, true faith, and the mind, will and work of Christ, but this Christ Himself must do. For neither pope nor bishop can produce faith in a man's heart, nor anything else a Christian member should have. But a Christian must have the mind and will which Christ has in heaven, as the apostle says, I. Corinthians ii [1. Cor. 2:16; 3:23]. It may also happen that a Christian member has the faith which neither pope nor bishop has; how then can the pope be his head? And if the pope cannot give to himself the life of the spiritual church, how can he instil it into another? Who has ever seen a live animal with a lifeless head? The head must give life to the body, and therefore it is clear that on earth there is no other head of the spiritual Christendom but Christ alone. Moreover, if a man were its head here below, Christendom would perish as often as a pope dies. For the body cannot live when the head is dead.
It follows further, that in this Church Christ can have no vicar, and therefore neither pope nor bishop is Christ's vicar or regent in this Church, nor can he ever become such. And this is proved as follows: A regent, if obedient to his lord, labors with and urges on the subjects and instils into them the same work which his lord himself instils, just as we see in temporal government, where there is one mind and will in lord, regents, and subjects. And if he were more holy than St. Peter, the pope can never instill into or create in a Christian man the work of Christ his Lord, i. e., faith, hope, love, and every grace and virtue.
And if such illustration and proof were not without flaw, though founded on the Scriptures, yet St. Paul stands strong and immovable in Ephesians iv, giving to Christendom but one head and saying, "Let us be true (i. e., not external, but real and true Christians) and grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from Whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." [Eph. 4:15,16] Here the apostle says clearly that the building up and increase of Christendom, which is the body of Christ, cometh alone from Christ, Who is its Head. And where can there be found another head on earth to whom such nature could be ascribed, especially since these "heads" in most cases have neither love nor faith? Besides, St. Paul referred in these words to himself, to St. Peter, and to every other Christian; and if another head were necessary he would have been utterly false in saying nothing about it.
I know very well that there are some who dare to say in reference to this and similar passages that though Paul was silent [1 Cor. 3:1], he did not thereby deny that St. Peter was also a head, but was feeding the unwise with milk. Just listen to this: they claim that it is necessary for salvation to have St. Peter for a head, and yet they have the effrontery to say that Paul concealed the things which are necessary to salvation. Thus these senseless goats would rather blaspheme Paul and the Word of God than be convinced of their error, and they call it "milk for babes" when Christ is proclaimed, and "strong meat" when St. Peter is proclaimed, just as if Peter were higher, greater, and more difficult to understand than Christ himself. And this is called explaining the Scriptures and overcoming Dr. Luther; this is the way to run out of the rain and fall into the trough. What could such babblers accomplish if we should have a disputation with the Bohemians[41] and the heretics? Truly nothing, except that we should be made a mockery for all, and give them due cause to look upon us all as blustering idiots, and they become more strongly entrenched in their own belief through the foolishness of our side.
[Sidenote: The Equality of Bishops] But then you ask: If the prelates are neither heads nor regents of the spiritual Church, what are they?
Let the laymen answer this, when they say: St. Peter is a messenger[42] and the other apostles are messengers too. Why should the pope be ashamed to be a messenger, if St. Peter himself is no more? But beware, ye laymen, or the super-learned Romanists will burn you at the stake as heretics because ye would make the pope a messenger and letter-carrier. But ye have a strong argument, for the Greek _Apostolos_ is in German "messenger," and thus are they called throughout the Gospel.
If, then, they are all messengers of the one Lord Christ, who would be so foolish as to say that so great a lord, in a matter of such great importance for the whole world, sends but one messenger, and he, in turn, sends other messengers of his own? Then St. Peter would have to be called, not a _Zwölfbote_ (one of the twelve messengers), but an only-messenger, and none of the others would remain _Zwölfboten_, but they would all be St. Peter's _Elfboten_ (i. e., his eleven messengers). But what is the custom at court? Is it not true that a lord has many messengers? Aye, when does it happen that many messengers are sent with the same message to one place, as now we have priest, bishop, archbishop and pope, all ruling over the same city, not to mention other tyrants, who shove in their rule somewhere between the rest? Christ sent all the apostles into the world with His Word and message with full, equal powers, as St. Paul says: "We are ambassadors for Christ." [1 Cor. 5:20] And in I. Corinthians iii. he says: "What is Peter? What is Paul? Servants through whom ye believed." [1 Cor. 3:5] This ambassadorship means to feed, to rule, to be bishop, and so forth. But that the pope makes all the messengers of God to be subject to himself, is the same as if one messenger of a prince detained all the other messengers, and then sent them out when it suited his pleasure, while he himself went nowhere. Would that be pleasing to the prince, if he found it out?
Should you say: True, but one messenger may be above another; I would reply: One may indeed be better and more skilful than another, as St. Paul was when compared with Peter; but since they bring one and the same message, one cannot be above another by reason of his office. But, put the other way, St. Peter is not a _Zwölfbote_ at all, but a special messenger and lord over the Eleven. What can it be that one has above the others, if they all have one and the same message and commission from the one Lord?
Forasmuch then as all bishops are equal by divine right and sit in the Apostles' places, I may gladly concede that by human right one is above the other in the external Church. For here the pope instils what is in his own mind, as, for instance, his Canon Law and human inventions, whereby Christendom is ruled with outward show; but that does not make Christians, as I have said above[43]; neither are they heretics who are not under the same laws and ceremonies or human ordinances. For customs change with the country.
All this is confined by the article in the Creed: "I believe in the Holy Ghost, one Holy Christian Church, the Communion of Saints." No one says: "I believe in the Holy Ghost, one Holy Roman Church, a Communion of the Romans." Thus it is clear that the Holy Church is not bound to Rome, but is as wide as the world, the assembly of those of one faith, a spiritual and not a bodily thing, for that which one believes is not bodily or visible. The external Roman Church we all see, therefore it cannot be the true Church, which is believed, and which is a community or assembly of the saints in faith, for no one can see who is a saint or a believer.
[Sidenote: The Marks of the Church] The external marks, whereby one can perceive where this Church is on earth, are baptism, the Sacrament, and the Gospel; and not Rome, or this place, or that. For where baptism and the Gospel are, no one may doubt that there are saints, even if it were only the babes in their cradles. But neither Rome nor the papal power is a mark of the Church,[44] for that power cannot make Christians, as baptism and the Gospel do; and therefore it does not belong to the true Church[44] and is but a human ordinance.
Therefore I would advise this Romanist to go to school another year, and to learn what the Church or the head of the Church[44] really means, before he drives out the poor heretics with writings of such height, depth, breadth and length. It grieves me to the heart that we must suffer these mad saints to tear asunder and blaspheme the Holy Scriptures with such insolence, license, and shamelessness, and that they make bold to deal with the Scriptures, whereas they are not fit to care for a herd of swine. Heretofore I have held that where something was to be proved by the Scriptures, the Scriptures quoted must really refer to the point at issue. I learn now that it is enough to throw many passages together helter-skelter, whether they are fit or not. If this is to be the way, then I can easily prove from the Scriptures that beer is better than wine.[45] Of the same character is his statement in both his Latin and his German treatise[46] that Christ is the head of the Turks, heathen, Christians, heretics, robbers, harlots and knaves. It would be no wonder if all the stone and timber in the cloister stared and hooted this miserable wretch to death for his horrible blasphemy. What shall I say? Has Christ become a keeper of all the houses of shame, a head of all the murderers, of all heretics, of all rogues? Woe unto thee, thou miserable wretch, that thou thus holdest up thy Lord for all the world to blaspheme! The poor man would write about the head of Christendom, and in utter madness imagines that "head" and "Lord" are one and the same. Christ is, indeed, Lord of all things, of all the good and the evil, of the angels and the devils, the virgins and the harlots; but He is not the head, except only of the good, believing Christians, assembled in the spirit. For a head must be united with its body, as I showed above from St. Paul in Ephesians iv,[47] and the members must cleave to the head and receive from it their activity and life. For this reason Christ cannot be the head of an evil community, although it is subject unto Him as Lord; even as His kingdom, namely Christendom, is not a bodily community or kingdom, yet all things are subject unto Him, be they spiritual or bodily, of hell or of heaven.
Thus in his first argument this reviler vilified and slandered me; in this second argument he reviled Christ much more than me. For even if he thinks much of his own holy prayers and fastings in contrast to a poor sinner like me, yet he has not called me a brothelkeeper and archknave, as he has Christ.
[Sidenote: III. The Argument from Scripture] Now comes the third argument, in which the high majesty of God is made a target, and the Holy Spirit becomes a liar and a heretic, so that by all means the contention of the Romanists may be upheld.
The third argument is taken from the Scriptures, just as the second was taken from reason and the first from folly, so that everything may be done in proper order. It runs as follows: The Old Testament was a type of the New Testament, and because it had a bodily high-priest, the New Testament must have one likewise--how else shall the type be fulfilled? For has not Christ Himself said: "Not one jot or tittle of the law shall pass away; it shall all be fulfilled"? [Matt. 5:18] A book more foolish, senseless, and blind I have never seen. Once before, another[48] wrote the same thing against me, so coarse and foolish that I could not but scorn it. But because they have not sharpened their wits, I must speak bluntly for the thickheads; I see that the ass does not appreciate a harp, I must offer him thistles.
[Sidenote: Type and Fulfillment]