How often and how grievously I have sinned, thou knowest: I myself cannot trace it!" 1 On c. xlix. 8, he laments, as we have seen him doing elsewhere, the conceit and fastidiousness of the people. "The time was, when I would have preferred the right understanding of a single psalm to all the riches of the world. But the heaven was then brass to us, and the earth iron. Now, when the windows of heaven have been opened, we are grown fastidious. He, who has once perused the New Testament, thinks he has nothing more to learn. The word of God, therefore, will be taken from us, and given to a nation whom perhaps we know not." 2 Here too again, after having strongly asserted his doctrine concerning justification, in treating of the fifty-third chapter, he, on the fifty-eighth, insists on good works as the evidence of a justified state: " Righteousness shall go before thee thy good works shall assure thy own conscience...Thus Peter says, that good works assure men of their calling... We are not here treating the question of justification."3 A. D. 1533. He published also at this time lectures on various other parts of scripture, and prefixed prefaces to different works of other authors; and particularly, in the year 1533, to the Confession of faith of the Waldenses; concerning The Walwhom, after inquiry, he had become satisfied denses. "that they were not heretics," but sound though imperfectly-instructed Christians.5-A letter to Joachim, prince of Anhalt, who was ill and depressed in mind, is particularly specified under the year 1534. He recommends to him cheerful conversation with his pastor, Hausman, music, and even facetious discourse: observ3 lbid. 82. Seck. iii. 81. • Ibid. 84--86. 2 Ibid. 82. IV. CHAP. ing that God "allowed exhilaration of that kind within proper limits, and would not be displeased at our thus dispelling melancholy, and enjoying the blessings he had bestowed upon us for both soul and body."1 Second tary on Galatians. In 1535 his renewed commentary on the Commen- epistle to the Galatians appeared. It is not a new edition' of his former work, but the substance of a new series of lectures on the epistle.2 Of this important work Dr. Milner has spoken so largely,3 in connexion with Luther's former publication on the same subject, that a few gleanings are all that shall here be added. On c. iii. 10, he thus explains what it is "to fulfil the law," in the only sense in which it can be done, or indeed the law of God truly obeyed at all, among sinful men. "We must in the first place listen to the promise, which proposes Christ to us: embracing him, we receive the Holy Spirit for his sake. God and our neighbour are then truly loved, good works are performed, the cross is borne. This is truly to fulfil the law, which otherwise remains for ever unfulfilled." 4 A subsequent passage may be quoted as opposed to the notion, to which fresh currency has been recently given, that we are first brought, indeed, into a justified state by faith, but can be continued in it only by obedience. "Faith perpetually" (or to the end) "justifies 1 Seck. iii. 86. 2 Ibid. 116-124. 3 Milner, iv. 509-524. (493-508.) Of course the term "fulfilling the law," is here used in a less strict and proper sense: not for the absolute fulfilling of it in all its "exceeding breadth," (as it must be if we would be justified by our own obedience to it,) but in the only sense in which it is ever obeyed by fallen man. And scripture itself seems to warrant this qualified sense of the term. Rom. viii. 4, &c. and makes us alive; and yet it remains not alone; that is, it is not idle. Not that it does not stand alone in its proper province and office-for it constantly justifies us...but it is not idle, and without charity." On the difficulty of treating these questions rightly, he says, on c. v. 13: "It is a nice and difficult thing to teach, that we are justified without good works, and yet to require them as necessary. Here, unless the teachers are faithful and wise ministers of Jesus Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God, able rightly to divide the word of truth, faith and works will immediately be confounded. Each topic, both faith and works, ought to be diligently urged and taught, yet so that each may be kept within its own province." Speaking of sanctification, he alludes to his former views when a monk, and the desire he then felt to converse with a saint, or holy person; figuring to himself under that name a hermit, an ascetic, feeding on roots: but he had since learned that the saint was one, who, being justified in the righteousness of Christ, went on to serve God in his proper calling; through the Spirit to mortify the deeds of the body, and to subdue his evil affections and desires. Not that all such characters were equally strong; they had many infirmities and evils to contend against: but that did not prevent their being holy, provided they did not sin with a wilful and impenitent mind....I joyfully therefore give thanks to God," he says, "that what I desired he has abundantly granted me, and that I see not one saint but many, yea innumerable saints; not such as empty sophisters imagine, but such as Christ and his apostles describe; and that, by the grace of God, I A. D. 1535. IV. CHAP. myself am one of the number." This, again, may be opposed to the abuse often made of his complaints of the evils existing among his own followers. On the Divine Law. Perhaps the most exceptionable point in the whole work is, the dishonourable manner in which it often seems to speak of "the law" of God; joining it with sin and Satan as almost equally opposed to man's happiness. This has commended the work to certain modern antinomians, as if it really favoured their views, when nothing can be further from the fact. The following passage furnishes the true explanation, always intended by the author, though not so often expressed as was necessary, unless he had reduced his language, of the kind referred to, to a more scriptural model. "In the conflicts of conscience nothing else ought to be known or thought of, than Christ alone, and the law should be placed out of sight: but, apart from these conflicts and the topic of justification, we ought, with Paul, to speak reverently of the law, to extol it with the highest praises, and to call it holy, just, good, spiritual, divine." It was not the law itself, therefore, of which Luther ever meant to speak dishonourably, but only the abuse of it into which they fell, who sought to be "justified by the works of the law," or refused all peace of conscience because they felt that they could not be so. Accordingly in some lectures on the first chapter of St. John, delivered in the year 1537, he thus makes the law our rule of life. "Even the moral law loses its power so far as this, that it cannot condemn those who believe in Christ, and are thus delivered from the curse of the law. Yet the decalogue remains in force, and belongs to Christians that they may obey it. For the righteousness which the law requires is fulfilled by believers, through the grace and assistance of the Holy Spirit which they receive. Hence all the exhortations of the prophets, and likewise of Christ and his apostles, to piety and holiness, are so many excellent expositions of the ten commandments." 2 A. D. 1536. His remarks on predestination are practical, rather than conformed to a system. In a commentary on Joel, on the words, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved," he says, "In this and similar sentences, the mercy of God is offered generally to all... here we ought to rest; and believe, since God sends us his word, that we are among the predestinated; and then, on the ground of this promise, to call upon him, and be assured [in so doing] of the salvation which he thus expressly promises." 3-With respect to per- Perseseverance, Luther, Bugenhagius, and Melanc- verance. thon jointly assign their reasons, in the year 1536, for disapproving, and dissuading the publication of a book written by a Thuringian divine, because he had "treated dangerously on predestination, and affirmed that the Holy Spirit was not lost by the elect, even if they fell into manifest crimes." They assert, that they had always unanimously taught the contrary in all the churches; namely, that, if any saint and believer knowingly and wilfully offended, he was no longer a saint, but had cast away true faith and the Holy Spirit; though God would receive him again if he repented. 1 Above, p. 238. 2 Seck. iii. 166. 3 Seck. iii. 133. See also 85 and 86. In fact this differs in no way materially from the Synod of Dort itself: on Predestination, § 16. |