{"id":809,"date":"2014-05-21T23:49:01","date_gmt":"2014-05-22T04:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/?p=809"},"modified":"2014-11-23T22:34:40","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T04:34:40","slug":"martin-luther-on-the-multiplication-of-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2014\/05\/21\/martin-luther-on-the-multiplication-of-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Luther on the Multiplication of Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"

“In the papacy we foolish saints added one ordinance to the other. \u00a0There were laws without number. \u00a0These only terrified the consciences and left people languishing with thirst. \u00a0The preachers only intensified the thirst. \u00a0This is inevitable. \u00a0The teachings of works-righteousness call forth thirst upon thirst….This is also what the jurists<\/em> <\/strong>do. \u00a0They constantly change, amend, and improve the laws, multiplying them without end. \u00a0It is like a snowball that rolls from a roof or from a mountain. \u00a0It is small when it begins, but it accumulates more and more snow as it rolls downward. \u00a0Finally it becomes so large that it would kill a child standing in its path. \u00a0Laws and human ordinances followed the same course in the papacy.” Martin Luther, “Sermons on the Gospel of St John,” in Luther’s Works<\/em>, vol. 23, p. 273.<\/p>\n

Here as Luther preached on John 7:38, he discussed the papacy’s use of the law to quench the thirst for forgiveness of sins. \u00a0One would only need to study the development of late medieval canon law and the numerous scholastic commentaries of other commentaries on canon law and theology to understand Luther’s point here. \u00a0His comparison with the jurists (lawyers) of his time illustrates his point well. \u00a0Lawyers and judges twist established law to bring about their desired outcomes. Governments and legal bureaucracies add law upon law, regulation upon regulation, and ordinance upon ordinance until it becomes impossible to understand without the experts’ advice.<\/p>\n

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“In the papacy we foolish saints added one ordinance to the other. \u00a0There were laws without number. \u00a0These only terrified the consciences and left people languishing with thirst. \u00a0The preachers only intensified the thirst. \u00a0This is inevitable. \u00a0The teachings of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lawyers","category-martin-luther-history","category-papacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":979,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809\/revisions\/979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}