But if the natural-law theories could appeal to Melanch-
thon as their patron, is the same true for the other Re-
formers as well? For Luther, this is affirmed by the Paris
theologian Eugene Ehrhardt, who has published a special
investigation under the title, "La notion du droit nafurel ches
Luther "^^ It is a fact that Luther often speaks of natural
law or the law of nature,^^ and Ehrhardt, investigating,
though not with absolute completeness, the use of the con-
ception in the writings of the Reformer, believes he has
discovered that the conception in Luther also has had its
roots in fimdamental principles of his theology.^* This
judgment becomes already precarious, however, when it is
observed that the notion of natural law, which, it is true, is
at all times variable, threatens in the Reformer to lose itself
almost altogether in the most diverse interpretations. At
one time, he thinks of it as like a law of reason which
"issuing from free reason overleaps all books".^* At an-
other time it is like "natural equity".** At another time
it is identified out and out with the law of Christian love,**
when it is said of the law of nature : "which also the Lord
declares in Luke vi. 31 and Matt. vii. 12: 'whatsoever ye
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them'."**
At another time, however, it is again only the law "which
also heathen, Turks and Jews must keep", "kept among all
heathen in common", which, although it forbids resistance
to lawful authority, still is far from making a man a Qiris-



64 AUGUST LANG

tian.^^ In expressing himself about its relation to positive
law, Luther now places it in the closest relation to Roman
law,^^ now regards it as the source of all written law;**
at another time he distinguishes the natural law as the
general moral demands of conscience from Moses' law
as the Jew's Sachsenspiegel, and yet says just afterwards
that the natural laws are nowhere drawn up in such a fine
and orderly manner as in Moses.'® It is of course easy, in
connection with Rom. i. igff. and ii. 