Luther justified his opposition to the rebels on three grounds.
First, in choosing violence over lawful submission to the secular government, they were ignoring Christ's counsel to "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's"; St. Paul had written in his epistle to the Romans 13:1–7 that all authorities are appointed by God and therefore should not be resisted. This reference from the Bible forms the foundation for the doctrine known as the Divine Right of Kings, or, in the German case, the divine right of the princes. Second, the violent actions of rebelling, robbing, and plundering placed the peasants
"outside the law of God and Empire", so they deserved "death in body and soul, if only as highwaymen and murderers." Lastly, Luther charged the rebels with blasphemy for calling themselves "Christian brethren" and committing their sinful acts under the banner of the Gospel.[94]
Without Luther's backing for the uprising, many rebels laid down their weapons; others felt betrayed. Their defeat by the Swabian League at the Battle of Frankenhausen on 15 May 1525, followed by Müntzer's execution, brought the revolutionary stage of the Reformation to a close.[95] Thereafter, radicalism found a refuge in the Anabaptist movement and other religious movements, while Luther's Reformation flourished under the wing of the secular powers.[96] In 1526 Luther wrote: "I, Martin
Luther, have during the rebellion slain all the peasants, for it was I who ordered them to be struck dead."[97] Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora, one of 12 nuns he had helped escape from the Nimbschen
Cistercian convent in April 1523, when he arranged for them to be smuggled out in herring barrels.[98] "Suddenly, and while I was occupied with far different thoughts," he wrote to Wenceslaus Link, "the Lord has plunged me into marriage."[99] At the time of their marriage, Katharina was 26 years old and Luther was 41 years old.
On 13 June 1525, the couple was engaged with Johannes Bugenhagen, Justus Jonas, Johannes Apel, Philipp Melanchthon and Lucas Cranach the Elder and his wife as witnesses.[100] On the evening of the same day, the couple was married by Bugenhagen.[100] The ceremonial walk to the church and the wedding banquet were left out, and were made up two weeks later on 27 June.[100]
Some priests and former religious had already married, including Andreas Karlstadt and Justus Jonas, but Luther's wedding set the seal of approval on clerical marriage.[101] He had long condemned vows of celibacy on Biblical grounds, but his decision to marry surprised many, not least Melanchthon, who called it reckless.[102]
Luther had written to George Spalatin on 30 November 1524, "I shall never take a wife, as I feel at present. Not that I am insensible to my flesh or sex (for I am neither wood nor stone); but my mind is averse to wedlock because I daily expect the death of a heretic."[103] Before Katharina von Bora, Luther's wife, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, marrying, Luther had been living on the plainest food, and, as he admitted himself, his mildewed bed was not properly made for months at a time.[104]
Luther and his wife moved into a former monastery, "The Black Cloister," a wedding present from the new elector John the Steadfast (1525–32). They embarked on what appeared to have been a happy and successful marriage, though money was often short.[105] Between bearing six children, Hans – June 1526; Elizabeth – 10 December
1527, who died within a few months; Magdalene – 1529, who died in Luther's arms in 1542; Martin – 1531; Paul – January 1533; and Margaret – 1534; Katharina helped the couple earn a living by farming the land and taking in boarders.[106] Luther confided to Michael Stiefel on 11
August 1526: "My Katie is in all things so obliging and pleasing to me that I would not exchange my poverty for the riches of Croesus."[107]
Organising the church By 1526, Luther found himself increasingly occupied in organising a new church.
His Biblical ideal of congregations choosing their own ministers had proved unworkable.[108] According to Bainton: "Luther's dilemma was that he wanted both a confessional church
CHAPTER 1. MAIN ARTICLE Church orders, Mecklenburg 1650 based on personal faith and experience and a territorial church including all in a given locality. If he were forced to choose, he would take his stand with the masses, and this was the direction in which he moved."[109] From 1525 to 1529, he established a supervisory church body, laid down a new form of worship service, and wrote a clear summary of the new faith in the form of two catechisms.
Luther's thought is revolutionary to the extent that it is a theology of the cross, the negation of every affirmation: as long as the cross is at the center, the system building tendency of reason is held in check, and system building does not degenerate into System.[110]
To avoid confusing or upsetting the people, Luther avoided extreme change. He also did not wish to replace one controlling system with another. He concentrated on the church in the Electorate of Saxony, acting only as an adviser to churches in new territories, many of which followed his Saxon model. He worked closely with the new elector, John the Steadfast, to whom he turned for secular leadership and funds on behalf of a church largely shorn of its assets and income after the break with Rome.[111]
For Luther's biographer Martin Brecht, this partnership "was the beginning of a questionable and originally unintended development towards a church government under the temporal sovereign".[112] The elector authorised a visitation of the church, a power formerly exercised by bishops.[113] At times, Luther's practical reforms fell short of his earlier radical pronouncements. For example, the Instructions for the Visitors of Parish Pastors in Electoral
Saxony (1528), drafted by Melanchthon with Luther's approval, stressed the role of repentance in the forgiveness of sins, despite Luther's position that faith alone ensures justification.[114] The Eisleben reformer Johannes
Agricola challenged this compromise, and Luther condemned him for teaching that faith is separate from works.[115] The Instruction is a problematic document for those seeking a consistent evolution in Luther's thought and practice.[116]
Evangelical Lutheran church liturgy and sacraments In response to demands for a German liturgy, Luther wrote a German Mass, which he published in early
1526.[117] He did not intend it as a replacement for his 1523 adaptation of the Latin Mass but as an alternative for the "simple people", a "public stimulation for people to believe and become Christians."[118] Luther based his order on the Catholic service but omitted "everything that smacks of sacrifice", and the Mass became a celebration where everyone received the wine as well as the bread.[119] He retained the elevation of the host and chalice, while trappings such as the Mass vestments, altar, and candles were made optional, allowing freedom of ceremony.[120] Some reformers, including followers of Huldrych Zwingli, considered Luther's service too papistic, and modern scholars note the conservatism of his alternative to the Catholic mass.[121] Luther's service, however, included congregational singing of hymns and psalms in German, as well as of parts of the liturgy, including Luther's unison setting of the Creed.[122] To reach the simple people and the young, Luther incorporated religious instruction into the weekday services in the form of the catechism.[123] He also provided simplified versions of the baptism and marriage services.[124]
Luther and his colleagues introduced the new order of worship during their visitation of the Electorate of Saxony, which began in 1527.[125] They also assessed the standard of pastoral care and Christian education in the territory.
"Merciful God, what misery I have seen,"
Luther wrote, "the common people knowing nothing at all of Christian doctrine ... and unfortunately many pastors are well-nigh unskilled and incapable of teaching."[126]