Luther - Works of Martin Luther Vol. 6 - Righteousness is Love

17himself on almost every phase of the worship of the Church and by andlarge, has been a fairly good diagnostician. But sometimes he permittedhimself to run to the novel, whether because of sheer perversity of spirit ora childish smartness or a desire to experiment, and then the results are byno means happy.It required a tremendous amount of self-confidence to face the issue ofbreaking with tradition, universal custom and wedded practice and toadvance counter propositions, at the same time making adequate provisionfor their introduction. For example, he not only proposes a vernacularservice and insists on the active participation of the people, but sets aboutproviding the means by which the people may participate. Luther not onlybecame a hymnist to satisfy this need but was active in providing the musicto which the hymns were to be sung. Translation of the Scriptures servedthis end likewise. The Litany “corrected” and translated into German;translated collects, etc., gave the people prayer forms. And finally in hisDeutsche Messe, he has not only a vernacular Mass, but a congregationparticipating most actively, and in by far the greater part, the means to thisend are of his providing!Of course, all of Luther’s activities in this field were bound and colored bythe doctrine which he espoused, The centralization of the Word and theconstant and great emphasis, — almost amounting to over-emphasis, —which he placed upon it quite naturally forced him to break with thepractices of the Roman Church which centralized and constantlyemphasized the sacrificial. While Luther does not neglect the Mass, — thecelebration of Holy Communion, — or over-shroud it, he does place atremendous importance on the preaching of the Word. The read Word, ofcourse, has its place, which in all respects remains quite normal to Romanuse, — and Luther never breaks with Roman use without definite reasonand deliberate purpose, — but the read Word is never to appear unlessaccompanied by exposition or preaching. In fact a constantly reiteratedprinciple is that the congregation is not to gather for worship unless theWord be preached, and the idealized service of Divine Worship is just thisin which the Word is centralized. This objective brought about someremarkable suggestions and experiments; for one may say they showeduncertainty as to just what he wanted done in this particular. For example,the daily services he suggested in his Von ordenung gottis diensts are tohave definite readings of Scripture always followed by the exposition of theportion read. This is to be both morning and evening. In his most