Christian Unity (the book) - The Maranatha Community

and his discovering that the Scriptures taught that God justifies (sets right) thesinner on the basis of his faith in Christ alone.The newly developed art of printing enabled his ideas to spread quicklythroughout Europe in the form of tracts and polemical woodcuts.Luther’s views were condemned by Pope Leo XII, and he was excommunicatedin 1521 when he refused to retract his beliefs. Luther’s own peace of mindcoram Deo (‘in the presence of God’) came through personal trust in Christ’ssacrifice alone: he campaigned against the superstitions of the folk religion ofhis day as also against a sacramental system which he believed deprivedpeople of direct access to God. It must be borne in mind, however, that Lutherwas not the only priest in the Church in his day who had struggled through toan experience of being justified by God by faith alone.On the subject of Christian unity, Luther’s view was that there were plenty oftrue believers outside the Church of Rome. He knew Hus’s views and approvedof his stand against Rome. He met the Bohemian (Czech) Brethren andgenerally admired them. He read the Greek Fathers and knew they did notsubmit to the authority of the Bishop of Rome.As for unity with Catholics, Luther was more cautious than some of his fellowReformers. For Luther it was not peace at any price. Catholics and Protestantsmet at Augsburg in 1530, and seven Princes signed in favour of the Lutherans’Confession (the first Evangelical Confession), drawn up largely by PhilipMelanchthon, Luther’s assistant, to try to conciliate Catholics.Much of the text of the Confession was on matters held in common by bothCatholics and Protestants (for example opposition to Anabaptism), but theparticular Protestant insistence on the place of personal faith for salvation wasretained. The Confession made the plea that in it,‘…nothing can be found differing from scripture, or from the CatholicChurch, or from the Church of Rome as we understand it from its(classical) writers. We are not heretics. Our trouble is with certain abuses,which have crept into the Churches without any clear authority. Theancient rites are to a large extent carefully preserved among us.’ 4545Rupp, E G and Drewery, Benjamin, ed, Martin Luther, Documents of Modern History,Edward Arnold, 1970, pp 145-148.Page 66