![\"Luther-23\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2017\/10\/Luther-23.jpg\")
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(3-3-10)<\/p>\n
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In my 2003 book,\u00a0Protestantism: Critical Reflections of an Ecumenical Catholic<\/a><\/em>, I described a set of quotations from Luther as evidences of Luther\u2019s \u201cAgony Over the State of Early Protestantism.\u201d Fellow \u201creformers\u201d Philip Melanchthon\u2019s and Martin Bucer\u2019s statements (in some ways even more explicit and specific) were also included in this appendix. Some anti-Catholic polemicists have lately been critiquing this. One such harsh and (as always) irrational critic is the inimitable \u201cTurretinfan\u201d:<\/p>\n Dave\u2019s appendix was not even \u201cScholars who think Luther Agonized Over the State of Early Protestantism.\u201d Dave\u2019s appendix purported to provide evidence of \u201cThe Agony of Luther, Melanchthon, and Bucer Over the State of Early Protestantism.\u201d<\/p>\n With the appendix as named, Dave is conveying the idea that the quotations he provides support the thesis for which they are provided. . . . he misled the readers.<\/p>\n Dave may now regret that he didn\u2019t do a more thorough job of researching some of the quotations in the appendix. He may well try to shift the blame to the secondary sources he relied on. Hopefully, at some point, he\u2019ll just come out and say, \u201cI didn\u2019t carefully research the matter, and consequently ended up misrepresenting Luther.\u201d . . . However, perhaps there is some reason that Dave is not interested in correct his research deficiencies of the past. (2-26-10<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Is it just\u00a0me: the so-called \u201cCatholic propagandist\u201d or supposed \u201canti-Luther\u201d zealot, or just partisan Catholic historians making this claim? Hardly (my blue<\/span> highlighting throughout):<\/p>\n Personal disappointment and fears<\/span>\u00a0strengthened his conviction that he was living on the eve of the Last Judgment. Although he had never entertained much hope for the mass of sinful humanity,\u00a0events from the mid-1520s onward still shocked and disappointed him<\/span>. He was made particularly\u00a0indignant<\/span>\u00a0by what he saw as\u00a0widespread indifference and ingratitude toward the renewed Gospel. The\u00a0\u201cingratitude of the Germans\u201d\u00a0<\/span>is a\u00a0complaint<\/span>\u00a0heard with increasing frequency as he moves through the last decade or so of his life. (Mark U. Edwards, Jr.<\/strong>,\u00a0Luther\u2019s Last Battles<\/a><\/em>, Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2004, p. 17)<\/p>\n In the late 1520s the Reformation movement had begun its transition from an ideological movement made up largely of committed individuals to an established institution embracing whole political entities. Luther had already experienced some of the\u00a0inevitable disappointment<\/span> and compromise\u00a0that accompanies any attempt to translate theory into practice. He had also been\u00a0challenged\u00a0by the\u00a0brutal realities<\/span> of the Peasants\u2019 War, the findings of the first visitations, and the\u00a0rending of the Protestant ranks.<\/p>\n . . . in the intervening decade Luther had also experienced\u00a0extreme frustration and disappointment<\/span> about the progress of the Reformation movement. He expressed this\u00a0disappointment<\/span>\u00a0through\u00a0searing indictments of the ingratitude with which the Germans had responded to the restored gospel. He upbraided them for the \u201cEpicurean\u201d indifference and, what was worse, for their open blasphemy. Alongside his attack on the papal \u201cabomination,\u201d then, he added a\u00a0condemnation of his contemporaries\u2019s response to the gospel.<\/p>\n This change should not be attributed to Luther\u2019s growing age or increased illness.\u00a0In\u00a0his grimmer moments, and in the articulations of his theology, he recognized that true Christians were rare, and that the great bulk of the population would\u00a0remain fast in its sin despite the renewed preaching of the gospel.\u00a0Yet\u00a0at some level of his being, above or below his understanding as a theologian,\u00a0he had apparently hoped for more than the actual course of events had provided. . . .<\/p>\n Luther was doomed to disappointment<\/span>. And so as\u00a0his hope for the progress of the gospel in this world, however faint, withered in the light of experience, he found solace in his hope for the Last Day.\u00a0(Ibid<\/em>., pp. 113-114)<\/p>\n The older Luther\u00a0was\u00a0a man who saw the world engaged in a metaphysical struggle between good and evil.\u00a0He\u00a0<\/i>was\u00a0a man gripped by apocalyptic hopes and fears; a man who had given his name to a movement that had taken, for him, a\u00a0painful and frustrating direction<\/span>. . . . opponents and circumstances, and even the action of allies and friends,\u00a0disappointed his hopes<\/span> and marred his efforts. Not infrequently, he found himself mired in petty disputes that brought neither him nor the movement any credit. He found himself misunderstood and held responsible for actions that he himself deplored. So as his own death neared . . .\u00a0he became ever more pessimistic<\/span>, praying not only for his own release but for the end of the world. (Ibid<\/em>., p. 208)<\/p>\n In detail,\u00a0Luther\u2019s effort on behalf of the Reformation was anything but a triumph\u00a0. . .<\/p>\n Among the signs of the last days for Luther, and against which he preached, was the\u00a0unwillingness to repent<\/span> \u2014 especially for the sins of usury and greed\u00a0\u2014 which he confronted in those around him.\u00a0In 1542 had had to admit resignedly that he had been unable to change the contempt for God\u2019s Word in Germany\u00a0<\/span>and would have to let the destruction<\/span> run its course [WA, Br 10:23, lines 7-23]. In the following year he stated that\u00a0all classes lacked a consciousness of injustice and sin\u00a0. . . (Martin Brecht<\/strong>,\u00a0Martin Luther: The Preservation of the Church: 1532-1546<\/em><\/a>, translated by James L. Schaaf, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993 [from the 1987 German original], pp. 332-333)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n His\u00a0last years\u00a0in Wittenberg were\u00a0bitter<\/span>. He was\u00a0disappointed<\/span>\u00a0in the\u00a0undisciplined lives\u00a0of his congregation, and he\u00a0raged<\/span>\u00a0at his audiences from the pulpit. Near the end of his life he threatened to leave the city altogether. . . . The Christian was moved by gratitude to God and sought to do good works not to win salvation but out of spontaneous love.\u00a0Luther saw no evidence that his people in Wittenberg were so moved. In September 1545, only a few months before he died, Luther preached a long, rambling, and heartfelt sermon\u00a0lambasting the Wittenbergers for adultery, greed, and the desires of the flesh. (Richard Marius<\/strong>,\u00a0Martin Luther: The Christian Between God and Death<\/a><\/em>, Harvard University Press, 2000, 466)<\/p>\n Luther himself was\u00a0not at peace\u00a0in these years<\/span>. . . . there were recurrences of the old\u00a0depressiveness<\/span>, especially as he\u00a0contemplated a Germany whose moral faults his Reformation had not reformed<\/span>\u00a0and a Christendom to whose unity he had brought schism. . . . Inexcusable as it is, Luther\u2019s anti-semitic writing reflects his\u00a0disappointments<\/span>\u00a0in his late years . . . Despite\u00a0bitterness and unhappiness<\/span>, the aging Luther had consolations.\u00a0(Michael A. Mullett<\/strong>,\u00a0Luther<\/em>, London: Methuen & Co., 1986,\u00a051-52<\/a>)<\/p>\n More and more pronounced became Luther\u2019s conviction that bitter trials were to come upon Germany, whether from the Turks or from internecine strife.\u00a0While\u00a0the whole world seemed to him to be in the state it had been in before the flood or the Babylonian exile or the destruction of Jerusalem, he was especially shocked<\/span> by the immorality in Wittenberg, so that he threatened in 1545 that he would never revisit it.\u00a0(Samuel Macauley Jackson<\/strong>, editor-in-chief,\u00a0The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge<\/a><\/em>, Volume 7, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1910, \u201cLuther, Martin,\u201d\u00a0p. 77<\/a>)<\/p>\n [T]hese last years witnessed a number of\u00a0disappointments\u00a0of great significance<\/span> in the life of the reformer. . . . Luther\u2019s\u00a0disappointment\u00a0<\/span>at the pace and shape of reform\u00a0led to his writings becoming\u00a0increasingly bitter in tone<\/span>. The imagery in the pamphlets became\u00a0more and more obscene and scatological, and\u00a0his attitude towards certain groups\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Anabaptists, papists and most notoriously the Jews \u2014\u00a0hardened in a dramatic manner<\/span>. In part, this was a result of\u00a0the failure of the reformation\u00a0to make a significant impact<\/span> on these groups.\u00a0(Andrew Pettegree<\/strong>, editor,\u00a0The Reformation World<\/a><\/em>, London and New York: Routledge, 2000,\u00a0p. 92<\/a>)<\/p>\n The external aspects of Catholic ritual were easily changed, but the personal lives of many had not been touched. . . . In his\u00a0last years\u00a0Martin Luther\u00a0lamented<\/span> over the low morality of the great mass of those who had gone over to the Protestant Church.\u00a0(B. K. Kuiper<\/strong>,\u00a0The Church in History<\/a><\/em>, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1995,\u00a0p. 205<\/a>)<\/p>\n Instead of mellowing\u00a0with the years, his\u00a0opposition to\u00a0the papists,\u00a0the radicals, and other reformers became even more bitter<\/span>.\u00a0(J. D. Douglas<\/strong> and Philip Wesley Comfort<\/strong>, editors,\u00a0Who\u2019s Who in Christian History<\/a><\/em>, Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1992,\u00a0p. 437<\/a>)<\/p>\n In 1545, he published, in his Annotations on Genesis<\/em>, and in other forms, the most\u00a0bitter expressions<\/span> against the Reformed, denominating Zuinglius, Oecolampadius and their adherents \u2018Enemies of the Sacrament,\u2019 \u2018Heretics,\u2019 and \u2018Reprobates.\u2019\u00a0Long ago, he declares, he had\u00a0ceased to pray for men who were murderers of souls\u00a0. . .\u00a0(Charles Hodge<\/strong>,\u00a0The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review<\/em>, 1839, Vol. XI,\u00a0p. 358<\/a>)<\/p>\n During his last years, bodily suffering, excess of work, struggles without and\u00a0calamities within his own circle\u00a0had exhausted his vital powers, and frequently made him\u00a0bitter, irritable, and\u00a0pessimistic<\/em>. (Wilhelm Ernst M\u00f6ller<\/strong>,\u00a0History of the Christian Church<\/a><\/em>, Vol. III, New York: Macmillan, 1900,\u00a0p. 152<\/a>)<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n\n
\n\nThe fact is undeniable, that\u00a0the Reformation in Germany was accompanied and followed by antinomian tendencies and a degeneracy of public morals. It rests not only on the hostile testimonies of Romanists and separatists, but\u00a0Luther and Melanchthon<\/span> themselves often bitterly complained<\/span> in their later years of the abuse of the liberty of the gospel and the sad state of morals in Wittenberg and throughout Saxony.\u00a0(Philip Schaff<\/strong>,\u00a0History of the Christian Church<\/i>, 2nd edition, 1882, vol. VII, \u00a7\u00a07. Justification by Faith<\/a>)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nLuther, and especially Melanchthon,\u00a0bitterly complained<\/span>, in their later years, of the abuse of the episcopal power assumed by the magistrate, and the\u00a0avarice of princes\u00a0in the misappropriation of ecclesiastical property. (Ibid<\/em>., \u00a7 44.\u00a0Address to the German Nobility<\/i>)<\/div>\n