“Professor Grisar is hard on Luther. Perhaps no Roman Catholic can help it. But it is significant that he is hard on the anti-Lutherans also.... He shows us, indeed, though not deliberately, that some reformation of religion was both imperative and inevitable.... But he is far from being overwhelmed with prejudice. He really investigates, uses good authorities, and gives reasons for his judgments.”—_The Expository Times._ “This Life of Luther is bound to become standard ... a model of every literary, critical, and scholarly virtue.”—_The Month._ “The most important book on Luther that has appeared since Denifle’s epoch-making ‘Luther und Luthertum.’ ... It is an ordered biography, ... and is therefore very probably destined to a wider general usefulness as a Catholic authority.”—_The Irish Rosary._ CONTENTS CHAPTER XV. ORGANISATION AND PUBLIC POSITION OF THE NEW CHURCH _pages_ 3-108 1. LUTHER’S RELIGIOUS SITUATION. WAS HIS REACTION A BREAK WITH RADICALISM? The New Church, with its binding formularies of faith and its constituted authorities, contrasted with Luther’s earlier demands for freedom from all outward bonds. The change which occurred in his mind in 1522. What prompted the reaction? Did Luther, prior to 1522, ever cherish the idea of a “religion minus dogma”? His clear design from the beginning to preserve all the Christian elements deemed by him essential. His assertion of the freedom of the Christian; the negations it logically involved pass unperceived. Greater stress laid on the positive elements after 1522; the subjective counter-current. Ecclesiastical anarchy. Modern Protestants more willing than was Luther to push his principles to their legitimate consequences. Conclusion: The reaction which set in in 1522 implied no real change of view. How Luther contrived to conceal from himself and from others the incompatibility of his leanings _pages_ 3-21 2. FROM THE CONGREGATIONAL TO THE STATE CHURCH. SECULARISATIONS.