Our state of grace may, however, be dimmed, and that not only by lack of faith; for it has its enemies in imperfections and sins. “Though our righteousness is a true one, yet in this life the forgiveness of sins plays a greater part than the perfection of virtue.”[1655] “If our will turns against God, we separate ourselves from Him, and the light which enlightened us during His presence at once changes into darkness.”[1656] In order to prevent any such danger on the part of the will, Augustine frequently reminds his readers of such exhortations of our Saviour, as: “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” “He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.”
Man is also spurred to be faithful, so he says, by the merit of good works. “God Himself has become our debtor,” so he said when preaching to the assembled faithful; “not as though He had received something from us, but because He has promised what He pleased. To a man we speak differently and say: You are my debtor because I have given to you. To God we say, on the contrary: Thou art my debtor because Thou hast made me promises; ... in this sense therefore we may urge on God our demands and say: Give what Thou hast promised, for we have done what Thou didst command.”[1657]
To recommend the practice of good works out of love of God and zeal for His honour, and to heap up merit for heaven, is the purpose of long and eloquent portions of the literary legacy which Augustine left behind him. The whole of the book “De fide et operibus” and long chapters of his “Enchiridion” were written with this object. In the former work he introduces, for instance, the Judgment scene described by our Saviour, and says: “Those who are placed on the left hand of Christ, according to this passage (Mat. xxv. 41), He will reproach not for not having believed in Him, but for not having performed good works. How could this be true if we were to attain to salvation without keeping the commandments or by faith alone (‘per solam fidem’), which without works is dead? Christ wished to impress on us that no one can promise himself eternal life by a dead faith, minus works. Hence He causes all the nations who have received the same spiritual food [of faith] to be separated out before Him, and clearly it is such as have believed but have not performed good works who will say: When did we see Thee suffering this and that [and did not minister to Thee]? They had fancied that by a dead faith they could attain to everlasting life.”[1658]
The voice of the bishop of Hippo, supported by the whole Church whose doctrine was also his, was re-echoed by later ecclesiastical writers who made greedy use of his works; nor were the exhortations of the Fathers without result among the faithful. Later Fathers frequently discourse on the testimony of Holy Writ in favour of works just as Augustine had done; the following texts were frequently adduced: “God will render to every man according to his works”; “Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified”; “The Son of Man will come and render to every man according to his works” (Rom. ii. 6, 13; Mat. xvi. 27).
Gregory the Great, who trained himself on Augustine’s model, states, in a homily to his congregation: “Possibly we may say to ourselves: I believe, hence I shall be saved. This is only true when we prove our faith by our works.” “Then are we true believers when we execute in work what we confess in our faith.”[1659]
A faith proved by works was the sign manual of the Middle Ages. Nor did Luther and his preachers ever complain of the lack of works of piety in the days previous to the Reformation, although they thought it their duty to blame the spirit in which those works had been performed.
What, however, did Luther and his followers think of the moral consequences of the preaching directed against all merit of good works?
The New Doctrine of Works in Practice, as Judged by Lutheran Opinion in the 16th Century.
We have already listened to Luther’s own complaints and those of many of his contemporaries concerning the parlous state of morals amongst the adherents of the new teaching, and the almost entire absence of any practical fruits of piety under the amended Gospel.[1660] Since the mainstay of the innovations was the doctrine of grace and works it is necessary to seek out more closely the connection between the new doctrine of works and the sad moral results of the revolt against the Church. Luther himself makes no odds about referring to these results and their real cause: “The surer we are of the freedom won by Christ, the more indolent do we become”; “because we teach that man attains to grace without any works whatever, we grow lazy”; he almost wishes “that the old teaching again came into its own.”[1661] Only his shortsightedness and the psychological effect of his passionate temper prevented his foreseeing the inevitable consequences of his theory of the all-sufficiency of faith and of his reckless denunciation of the regard for commandments and works previously obtaining. How little his own frequent exhortations to lead a moral life and to perform works of Christian charity (see below, p. 472 ff.) could prevail against the fell charm of the doctrine of Evangelical freedom, remained hid from his eyes, until the extent of the moral corruption and the growing savagery of the people in certain regions began to frighten him and to cause him to long ardently for the end of the world and even to predict its imminence.
There was some truth in what he said, viz. that, as the world was constituted, if one preached faith (i.e. the justifying faith so much belauded by him) works went to the wall, and that, on the other hand, “faith” must needs perish wherever works were preached.[1662] The two were indeed self-exclusive, however much, in his recommendation of works, he might affirm the contrary.