It was the teaching of the Church that prayers, fasts, masses, pilgrimages, and other "good works" might be accumulated and form a treasury of spiritual goods. Those who were wanting in good deeds might, therefore, have their deficiencies offset by the inexhaustible surplus of righteous deeds which had been created by Christ and the saints.
Popular reliance upon outward religious acts.
The idea was certainly a beautiful one, that Christians should thus be able to help one another by their good works, and that the strong and faithful worshiper could aid the weak and indifferent. Yet the thoughtful teachers in the Church realized that the doctrine of the treasury of good works might be gravely misunderstood; and there was certainly a strong inclination among the people to believe that God might be propitiated by various outward acts—attendance at church ceremonies, giving of alms, the veneration of relics, the making of pilgrimages, etc. It was clear that the hope of profiting by the good works of others might lead to the neglect of the true welfare of the soul.
Demand for more spiritual religion.
137. In spite, however, of the popular confidence in outward acts and ceremonies, from which the heart was often absent, there were many signs of a general longing for deeper and more spiritual religion than that of which we have been speaking. The new art of printing was used to increase the number of religious manuals. These all emphasized the uselessness of outward acts without true contrition and sorrow for sin, and urged the sinner to rely upon the love and forgiveness of God.
The Bible in German before Luther.
All good Christians were urged, moreover, to read the Bible, of which there were a number of editions in German, besides little books in which portions of the New Testament were given. There are many indications that the Bible was commonly read before Luther's time.[266]
It was natural, therefore, that the German people should take a great interest in the new and better translation of the Scriptures which Luther prepared. Preaching had also become common—as common perhaps as it is now—before the Protestants appeared. Some towns even engaged special preachers of known eloquence to address their citizens regularly.
These facts would seem to justify the conclusion that there were many before Luther appeared who were approaching the ideas of religion which later appealed especially to the Protestants. The insistence of the Protestants upon salvation through faith alone in God, their suspicion of ceremonies and "good works," their reliance upon the Bible, and the stress they laid upon preaching,—all these were to be found in Germany and elsewhere before Luther began to preach.
The German humanists.