During this crucial period of his mental growth he preached in 1515 on the glad tidings of the Gospel; it was “glad” because it taught us “that the law had already been fulfilled by Christ, so that it was no longer necessary for us to fulfil it, but only, by faith, to hang it about the Man who had fulfilled it and become conformed to Him, because Christ is our Righteousness, Holiness and Redemption.”[1616]
Later he comes to speak still more strongly. He fully admitted it was natural to all men, himself included, to turn to good works in trouble of conscience; it was beyond reason not to rest on them,[1617] yet, according to him, in solacing our conscience we must pay no heed either to sin or to works, but put our whole trust in the righteousness of Christ; we must, to quote him literally, “set up grace and forgiveness, not only against sin, but also against good works.”[1618] It is true that he protests that he has no intention to exclude works (other statements of his in favour of good works will be quoted in due time), yet he abases them to a level which fails to explain why Christ and the Apostles so earnestly recommended them and promised an eternal reward for their performance. Luther assures us that good works form “worldly righteousness”; that love of our neighbour is enjoined for the welfare of society and because we live together; yet he steadfastly condemns as a “shameful delusion,” the view “that works are of any value to righteousness in the sight of God.”[1619]
Who of his contemporaries could deny that Luther preached a wonderfully simple and easy road to “life everlasting”? If this and the “forgiveness of sins” were to cost no more than he insists upon elsewhere, viz. “that you hear the Word and believe it when you have heard it; if you believe it, then you have it without any trouble, expense, delay or pains; thus does the Gospel of Christ and the Christian teaching do everything with a few short words, for it is God’s own Word.”[1620]
Worthy of notice in connection with his ideas of evangelical freedom (see above, p. 453, and vol. ii., p. 27 ff.) is the significant use he makes of the term applied in the New Testament to all Christians, viz. members of a “royal priesthood,” which Luther takes as meaning that all believers have a certain supremacy over sin.
As every Christian, so he teaches, by virtue of the universal priesthood possesses authority to “proclaim the Gospel,” as everyone, “man, woman or maid,” is qualified to “teach” who “knows how to and is able,” so the “Spirit of Christ encourages” all without exception and makes of each one “a great Lord and King of all.” But, “where works are preached, there the right of primogeniture is taken from us,” and this privilege of “royal and priestly dignity disappears completely.” Sometimes the devil tries to force us to sin, for “he is a servant and has his own way. If he forces me to sin then I run to Christ and invoke His help; then he is ashamed. The more he does, the greater his shame. Thus this power is omnipotent. ‘Thou hast set all things under his feet’ [Ps. viii. 8], we are told. ‘We shall judge the angels,’ says St. Paul [1 Cor. vi. 3]. That is our right of primogeniture which we must ascribe, not to ourselves, but to Christ. But when Christ has cleansed you, then you do what is good, not for yourself [by gaining merit], but for others.”—Such a doctrine he could truly say the Papists failed to understand. But he adds further: They cannot even pray; “with their prayers they merely mock God.”[1621]
If all the faithful are, as the new Evangel teaches, by virtue of their right of primogeniture great Lords and Kings, then that fear of God’s chastisements is no longer justified which the ancient Church had always put forward as one of the motives for performing good works and leading a moral life. On the contrary, we are not to open our hearts too readily to such fear. Luther’s injunctions concerning fear of the Judge go to form a further chapter in the psychological and historical criticism of his doctrine of works. Here we see plainly his instinctive aversion to the views and practice of the olden Church.
The Catholic doctrine of fear had been expressed with wonderful simplicity in the “Imitation of Christ,” already widely read in the years previous to the Reformation: “It is well, my son, that so long as love avails not to restrain thee, fear of eternal punishment should at least affright thee from evil. Whoever disregards fear will not long be able to persevere in good.”—“Consider how thou mayest answer for thyself before the stern judge”: “Now thy labour is still fruitful, now thy contrition still cleanses and makes satisfaction.” “At the day of judgment the man who has mortified his flesh here below will rejoice more than he who has indulged it in luxury.”—The “Imitation” desires, however, that fear should be allied with confidence and love. “Look on Me,” it makes Christ say, “let not thy heart be troubled nor afraid. Believe in Me and trust in My mercy. When thou thinkest thou art far from Me, I am often closest to thee.” “If thou but trust in the Lord,” it says again, “strength will be given thee from above.” “Thou hast no need to fear the devil if thou art armed with the cross of Christ.” Nor do we meet in this book with any trace of that frozen fear which Luther represented as prevalent in the monasteries, on the contrary it insists no less on love: “In the cloister no one can persevere unless he be ready for the love of God to humble himself from the bottom of his heart.”
In order to supply a suitable background for his new doctrine, Luther made out Catholic antiquity to have fostered both in theory and in practice a craven fear, of which in reality it knew nothing at all. By excluding the elements of trust and love, he reduced Catholic life to the merest state of fear, as though this had actually been the sphere in which it moved; he charges it with having cultivated that servile fear which would at once commit sin were there no penalty attached; he also finds in monastic life an element of excitement and confusion which, as our readers already know, was really peculiar to his own personal temperament at one time.
Far more characteristic than such calumnies is his own attitude to that fear of God’s judgments which is just and indispensable.
Not as though, generally, he did not recommend and praise the “fear of God.” This, however, falls beside the mark since such a fear may exist without any adverting to the punishments of the judge, and, as Luther himself puts it, not altogether incorrectly, is more “an awe that holds God in honour and which is always expected of the Christian, just as a good child should fear his father.”[1622] This is the “timor reverentialis,” to use the earlier theological term. But to the actual fear of the Divine judgments as an expiatory and saving motive, Luther gives no place whatever; neither in the justification of the sinner, seeing that he makes faith the one condition for its attainment, or subsequent to justification and in the state of grace, because there all that obtains is confidence in the covering over of sin by grace, while the state of grace, in his opinion, of its own nature necessarily works what is good. The Law and its threats, is, in his opinion, useful “for revealing sin” in order that, knowing this, “grace may be sought and obtained”; “thus the Law works fear and wrath, whereas grace works hope and mercy.”[1623]