His doctrine of faith alone and of the imputed merits of Christ, was, of all his theological opinions, the one which underwent the least change during his lifetime.[1551] Until old age he continued to lay great stress on it both in the University Disputations and in his sermons and writings.[1552] Even the inferences drawn from it by Johann Agricola in his Antinomian theses did not cause Luther to waver in the least.
In the Schmalkalden Articles he declares explicitly that Justification consists merely in God’s “looking upon” the sinner “as righteous and holy.”[1553] According to one of his sermons our righteousness comes “altogether from without and rests solely on Christ and His work”;[1554] elsewhere he says, with the utmost assurance: The Christian is “righteous and holy by virtue of a foreign or outward holiness.”[1555]
In view of such statements undue stress must not be laid on that Luther says in another passage, which recalls the teaching of the olden Church, viz. that the Spirit of God dwells in the righteous, and fills him with His gifts, nay, with His very “substance,”[1556] and that it was this Spirit which gave him the “feeling and the certainty” of being in a state of grace.[1557] This is much the same as when Luther describes man’s active love of God whereby he becomes united and “one kitchen” with God,[1558] whilst, nevertheless, insisting that the strength of the sola fides must never be the least diminished by work. “No work must be added to this” (to faith), he says in his postils, “for whoever preaches that guilt and penalty can be atoned for by works has already denied the Evangel.”[1559] Only at times does he allow himself to follow the voice of nature speaking on behalf of man’s co-operation; this he does, for instance, in the passage just referred to, where he admits that human reason is ever inviting man to take a share in working out his salvation by means of his own works.[1560]
The forgiveness which God offers “must be seized and believed. If you believe it you are rid of sin and all is right.” “This all the Gospels teach.”[1561] Unfortunately there are “many abandoned people who misuse the Gospel ... who think that no one must punish them because the Gospel preaches nothing but forgiveness of sins. To such the Gospel is not preached.... To whom is it preached? To those who feel their misery,” i.e. to those who are sunk in remorse of conscience and in fears, similar to, or at least faintly resembling, those he had himself once endured. When he applies the words of Psalm 50 to the yearning, the prayers and the struggles of those who thirst for salvation: “A contrite and humbled heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise,” he finds himself again, all unconsciously, on the road to the Church’s olden view on man’s share in repentance.
What we read in the important notes “De iustificatione,” written during Luther’s stay in the fortress of Coburg and only recently published, differs not at all from his ordinary, purely mechanical view of Justification.[1562] These notes are from Luther’s amanuensis, Veit Dietrich, and record some conversations concerning a work Luther had planned in reply to the objections against the new doctrine of Justification. Dietrich entitled the collection “Rhapsodia.”[1563]
It is not surprising that at a later date Luther hesitated to appeal to St. Augustine in support of his doctrine so confidently as he once had done. Augustine and all the Doctors of the Church are decidedly against him. On the publication of the complete edition of his works in Latin Luther expressed himself in the preface very diplomatically concerning Augustine: “In the matter of imputation he does not explain everything clearly.”[1564] Naturally the greatest teacher on grace, who lays such stress on its supernatural character and its gifts in the soul of the righteous, could not fail to disagree with him, seeing that Luther’s system culminates in the assurance, that grace is the merest imputation in which man has no active share, a mere favour on God’s part, “favor Dei.”[1565]
Augustine’s views of the powers and the end of man in the natural as well as the supernatural order have been clearly set forth in their connection with the trend of present-day scholarship by an eminent Catholic researcher. The latter points out that a strong revulsion against Luther’s idea of outward imputation has shown itself in Protestantism, and that the “historical theology” of our day largely acknowledges the existence of the Catholic doctrine “in the olden ecclesiastical and, indeed, even in the New-Testament world.” The same holds good of Augustine as of Paul. “Not the ‘sola fides,’ but the renewal of the interior man, a ‘true and real new creation,’ was the essence of Paul’s doctrine of justification.”[1566]
The Striving after Absolute Certainty of Salvation.
Luther was chiefly concerned in emphasising the indispensable necessity of particular faith in personal justification and personal salvation.