THE CONVERSION OF MARTIN LUTHER By Horatius Bonar. He sent from above. He took me. He drew me out of many waters. Psalm 18, verse 16. Dear righteousnesses of me, saith the Lord. Isaiah 54, 17. Martin Luther, the great reformer of the Church from Popery, was born of poor parents in Germany in the year 1483. When he was 18 years of age, he began to study at one of the colleges, but it was not until he was 20 that he ever saw a Bible. After he had studied two whole years, he was one day in the library of the college, turning over one book after another to read the names of their authors. At last he came to one which fixed his attention. It was a Bible. With eagerness and delight he read page after page and book after book. Oh, thought he, if God would but give me such a book for my own. He soon returned to the library and read again and again the wonderful pages of the newfound volume. A deep impression from that day remained upon his soul, but still he knew nothing of the gospel of Christ. Some time after this he became a monk. He thought he would thus separate himself from the world. He did not then know that there was more wickedness among the monks than in the world. But while in the convent he found a Bible. It was fastened by a chain to a particular place so that he could not carry it with him to study it in secret. But every day he came to this chained Bible to read the words of eternal life. At first, it was dark to him. He did not understand its meaning. It was not only a chain but a syllable to him. Yet he continued to study it with the utmost eagerness and to meditate upon it day and night. The Word of God was precious in those days. It was very precious to the anxious soul of Luther. And yet he was miserable. He felt he was a sinner and knew not how he was to be forgiven. His soul was in chains like the Bible that he read. As yet he did not know the liberty of the gospel. He didn't know the power of the blood of Jesus, nor did he understand the free forgiving love of God. One of his friends tells us that about this time he was often under great terrors when he thought of the wrath of God against sin. Once and again deep anguish took hold of his soul and it seemed as if he would sink under it. On one occasion he had been conversing with a friend upon the things of God. No sooner had the conversion ended than the truths of which he had been speaking struck home with awful power to the tossed soul of Martin Luther. He left the room and sought to near his chamber to give vent to the feelings of his bursting heart. He threw himself upon the bed and prayed aloud in agony, repeating over and over again these words of the Apostle in Romans 11, verse 32. He had shut them all up in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all. Reader, have you ever felt what sin is? Have you ever known what the law of God is? Do you remember that the wages of sin is death? Have you considered what a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God? Luther now began to try to make himself holy. He fasted for days together. He shut himself up alone in his cold cell. He passed many nights, sometimes four weeks, without sleep. He read, he studied, he prayed, he wept. He watched, he strove, but all in vain. He found himself as far from holiness and peace as ever. If ever anyone could have gained heaven by his own merits, Martin Luther would have gained it. To those around him he seemed the holiest man alive, but the light of the law showed him that within all was vile. His soul cried out for rest, but he did not find it, for he was seeking it not in God's way, but in a way of his own. He wanted to be sure that the sins were forgiven him, for he felt that, till he knew this, he could not have peace. But his fear increased upon him, and he knew not what to do, nor which way to turn. He saw everything that he thought and did to be sin. And how could he rest until he knew that all was forgiven? His friends told him to do good works, and that would satisfy the justice of God. Miserable comforters! What good works, he said, can proceed out of a hard-lying mind? How can I with works like these stand before a holy judge? The terrors of the fiery law compassed him about and consumed his soul. His sore ran in the night and ceased not. He saw nothing in God but the angry judge. He had not yet learned the riches of his grace through Jesus Christ. His bodily health gave way. A wounded spirit, who can bear, he wasted away. He became thin and pale, his eyes, which were peculiarly bright, looked wild with despair, and death seemed just at hand. In his state he was visited by an old priest, his name was Stoppitz. He pitied the dying monk, and all the more so when he was told the cause of his suffering. Priad himself passed through the same conflict, but he had found the peace of God in his soul and was therefore well-fitted to give counsel to Luther. It is in vain, said Luther to him, that I make promises to God. Sin is always too strong for me. Oh, my friend, said Stoppets, I have often made vows myself, but I have never kept them. I now make no more vows, for if God will not be merciful to me, for Christ's sake, I cannot stand before him with all my vows and works. Martin Luther made known to him all of his fears. He spoke of God's justice, God's holiness, God's sovereign majesty. How could he stand before such a God? Why, said his aged friend, do you distress yourself with these thoughts? Look to the wounds of Jesus, to the blood which He has shed for you. It is there that you will see the mercy of God. Cast yourself into the arms of the Savior. Trust in Him and the righteousness of His life and the atoning sacrifice of His death. Do not shrink away from Him. God is not against you. It is only you who are averse from God. Listen to the Son of God. He became man to assure you of the divine favor. Still, Luther was in the dark. He thought he had not repented properly and asked, How can I dare believe in the favor of God so long as there is in me no real conversion? I must be changed before he can receive me. He is told that there can be no real conversion so long as a man fears God as a stern judge. There is, said a friend, no true repentance but that which begins in the love of God and righteousness. That which some fancy to be the end of repentance is only its beginning. If you wish to be really converted, do not try these penances. Love him who has first loved you. Luther listens and is glad. The day breaks. New light pours in. Yes, said he, it is Jesus Christ that comforts me so wonderfully by these sweet and healing words. In order to true repentance, we must love God. He had never heard this before. Taking this truth as his guide, he went to the scriptures. He turned up all the passages which speak of repentance and conversion. And these two words, which were formerly his terror, now became precious and sweet. The passages, which used most to alarm him, now seemed to run to me from all sides, to smile, to spring up and play around me. Formerly I tried to love God, but it was all forced, and there was no word so bitter to me as that of repentance. Now there is none more pleasant. Oh, how blessed are all God's precepts when we read them not in books only, but in the precious wounds of the Savior. Thus he learned that we are not forgiven because we love God, but we love God because we are forgiven. We cannot repent. We cannot love, till we have known and believed the love that God has to us. Herein is love. Not that we love God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation for sins. Weary souls who are trying to repent and trying to love God in order that He may love and forgive you, look at Luther and learn the more excellent way. It is the free love of God to us that melts the heart, that fills the eye with tears, that constrains the soul to love and return. Trembling sinners, hear this and be glad. Careless sinners, hear this and turn. Still Luther's darkness at times returned. His sins again went over his soul and hid the face of God. Oh, my sin, my sin, my sin, cried he one day to his aged friend. "'What would you have?' says Stoppit. "'Would you like if your sin was not real? "'Remember, if you have only the appearance of a sinner, "'you must be content with the mere appearance of a Savior. "'But learn this, that Jesus Christ is the Savior "'of those who are real and great sinners "'and deserving of utter condemnation. "'Look at the wounds of Christ,' said he on another occasion, "'and you will see there shining clearly "'the purpose of God towards men. We cannot understand God out of Christ. How true! It is only when we feel that we are real sinners that we prize a real Savior, one who really made His soul an offering for sin. It is only when we see sin come in between us and God that we find the preciousness of Him who put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. It is then also we see the face of the true God and the face of Jesus, and learn to read the love of the Father and the love of the Son. But Luther's peace sometimes gave way and his fears returned. He was taken ill and brought down to the gates of death. Terror again took hold on him. Death seemed full of gloom. It was a fearful thing to meet a holy God. An old monk visited him on his sickbed, and in him God gave him another comforter and guide. Sitting at his bedside, he repeated a sentence of the accreed, I believe, and the forgiveness of sins. These words, thus simply and sweetly brought to mind, were like balm to the soul of Luther. I believe, said he to himself, the forgiveness of sins. But, said the old man, we're not merely to believe that there is forgiveness for David or Peter. The command of God is that we believe there is forgiveness for our sins. Luther's spirit was revived. He found on his rock a sufficient resting place and his soul rejoiced in the forgiving love of God. Believing in the name of Jesus, he found the blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven. and whose sin is covered. He saw himself at once and completely forgiven, at once and completely reconciled. In one of his letters he thus refers to the struggle which had taken place on his soul. It was long and made up of many parts. It was a struggle of a soul seeking to get rid of sin, groping after life, fighting its way to God. I had in truth, he says, a hearty desire to understand particularly the epistle to the Romans. What kept me from understanding it was that singular expression, the righteousness of God. In the first chapter, verse 17, the disrighteousness, as I understood it, I had great aversion. I thought it meant God's character is a righteous judge. Though as a monk I lived a blameless life, I still found myself a great sinner before God, and I did not dare to think of pleasing Him by my own works. On this account, I did not love this just and angry God because He punishes sinners. I hated Him and felt incensed against Him. Still, however, I studied the beloved Paul that I might find out the meaning of that passage. For I thirsted greatly to know it. Any thoughts I spent day and night until through God's grace I observed how the words are connected together in the following way. The righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel as it is written that Joshua lived by faith. Observing this connection, I have become acquainted with this same righteousness of God in which a justified person lives, only through faith. I saw that the Apostle's meaning was this, that by the gospel is made known that righteousness which avails with God, in which God, out of grace and mere mercy, makes us righteous through faith. Upon this I felt immediately as if I was wholly born anew and had now found an open door into Paradise itself. The precious Holy Scripture now at once appeared quite another thing to me. I ran quickly through the whole Bible and collected all that it says on the subject. Thus, as I had before hated this expression, the righteousness of God, so now I began dearly and highly to esteem it as my beloved and most comfortable word of scripture, and that passage became to me the very gate of heaven. Thus, his weary soul found rest. It was now like a vessel that had reached its haven. No storm can reach or harm it. It was like the dove in the clefts of the rock. He was like the man who had reached a city of refuge. He found himself safe and at rest. Jehovah, his righteousness, was a song and a joy. It was what he saw in Christ that gave him hope and confidence toward God, not what he saw in himself. It was what he knew of Christ and of his righteousness that took away all fear. and filled his soul with peace. He believed and was forgiven. Nor did he reckon in presumption to count himself a forgiven soul. He gloried and rejoiced in this. He counted it one of the most grievous of all sins to doubt it. He saw that the gospel was intended to bring his forgiveness and to assure us of it. He saw that whenever we really believed the gospel, then that forgiveness is as completely and certainly ours as if we were already in heaven. This is the very life of Luther's soul. It was this that made him so bold in the cause of Christ, in all of his future life. He was assured of the favor of God, and that took away all fear of man. There was one text of scripture which seems to have been greatly blessed to him. It was very frequently on his mind during his many struggles. It was a text which Paul quotes from Habakkuk to prove that we are justified by faith alone, that just shall live by faith. Once he was sent to Rome on some business and he thought that good works done at Rome were better. and had more merit than those down anywhere else, he was told that if he would crawl up a very long stair called Pilot's Staircase on his bare knees he would acquire a great stock of merit. With great earnestness he set himself to do this miserable penance. While he was crawling up the steps he thought he heard a voice like thunder saying aloud to him, The just shall live by faith. Immediately he started from his knees and stopped in the middle of the ascent. The words went to a soul like the voice of God reproving me for his folly. Filled with shame, he instantly left the place. He saw that it was not by his works that he was to save himself at all, far less by works such as these, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but by his mercy he saved us. At another time he was appointed to lecture on divinity. After explaining the Psalms he came to the epistle to the Romans and studying this he took great delight. He used to sit in his quiet cell for many hours with the Bible open before him. Meditating on that epistle, the 17th verse of the first chapter fixed his eye and filled his whole thoughts just to live by faith. And as he saw that there was another life than that possessed by man in general, and that this life was a fruit of faith, in the midst of much darkness these simple words were a lamp to his feet and a light to his path. Clear light soon dawned upon his soul, and through him the bright beams of the gospel shot forth upon the benighted nations of Europe. The conversion of Martin Luther was the dawning of the Reformation. Horatius Bonar.