"The time for silence is gone, and the time for speaking has come." With these words (based
on Eccles. 3:7) of the dedicatory preface to Amsdorf, Luther introduces his address, to his most
Serene and Mighty Imperial Majesty, and to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, respecting
a Reformation of the Christian Estate." The preface is dated on the Eve of St. John the Baptist (June
23), 1520; the book was hastily completed July 20,^237 and before Aug. 18 no less than four thousand
copies—an enormous number for those days—were published, and a new edition called for, besides
reprints which soon appeared in Leipzig and Strassburg.
The book is a most stirring appeal to the German nobles, who, through Hutten and Sickingen,
had recently offered their armed assistance to Luther. He calls upon them to take the much-needed
Reformation of the Church into their own hands; not, indeed, by force of arms, but by legal means,
in the fear of God, and in reliance upon his strength. The bishops and clergy refused to do their
duty; hence the laity must come to the front of the battle for the purity and liberty of the Church.
Luther exposes without mercy the tyranny of the Pope, whose government, he says, "agrees
with the government of the apostles as well as Lucifer with Christ, hell with heaven, night with
day; and yet he calls himself Christ’s Vicar, and the Successor of Peter."
The book is divided into three parts: —
- In the first part, Luther pulls down what he calls the three walls of Jericho, which the
papacy had erected in self-defense against any reformation; namely, the exclusion of the laity from
all control, the exclusive claim to interpret the Scriptures, and the exclusive claim to call a Council.
Under the first head, he brings out clearly and strongly, in opposition to priestcraft, the
fundamental Protestant principle of the general priesthood of all baptized Christians. He attacks
the distinction of two estates, one spiritual, consisting of Pope, bishops, priests, and monks; and
one temporal, consisting of princes, lords, artificers, and peasants. There is only one body, under
Christ the Head. All Christians belong to the spiritual estate. Baptism, gospel and faith,—these
alone make spiritual and Christian people.^238 We are consecrated priests by baptism; we are a royal
priesthood, kings and priests before God (1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 5:10). The only difference, then, between
clergy and laity, is one of office and function, not of estate.
Luther represents here the ministerial office as the creature of the congregation; while at a
later period, warned by democratic excesses, and the unfitness of most of the congregations of that
age for a popular form of government, he laid greater stress upon the importance of the ministry
as an institution of Christ. This idea of the general priesthood necessarily led to the emancipation
of the laity from priestly control, and their participation in the affairs of the Church, although this
has been but very imperfectly carried out in Protestant state churches. It destroyed the distinction
between higher (clerical and monastic), and lower morality; it gave sanctity to the natural relations,
duties, and virtues; it elevated the family as equal in dignity to virginity; it promoted general
intelligence, and sharpened the sense of individual responsibility to the Church. But to the same
source may be traced also the undue interference of kings, princes, and magistrates in ecclesiastical
matters, and that degrading dependence of many Protestant establishments upon the secular power.
Kingcraft and priestcraft are two opposite extremes, equally opposed to the spirit of Christianity.
Luther, and especially Melanchthon, bitterly complained, in their later years, of the abuse of the
(^237) On that date he informed Wencislaus Link: "Editur noster libellus in Papam de reformanda ecclesia vernaculus, ad universam
nobilitatem Germaniae, qui summe offensurus est Romam .... Vale, et ora pro me." De Wette, I. 470.
(^238) "Was aus der Taufe gekrochen ist, das mag sich rühmen, dass es schon Priester, Bischof, und Papst geweihet sei."