ACCORDING to Herrmann, the law of the Church is to a Catholic "a burden and a restraint," whilst freedom means to him unrestricted license. A Catholic, he thinks, must strive to perform certain definitely prescribed acts, and "if his actions conform to what is required, he may incidentally do what he can to advance his individual interests. When a man has satisfied the requirements of the commandments, he can in other matters do as he likes."{1} In this way the moral law seems brought down to the level of the civil law. "A Catholic Christian, who allows himself to be kept by his Church at such a point of moral immaturity, always lives in a state of inward rebellion against God. For what he desires to be for his own sake is always something different from what is right, since he feels the moral law to be a barrier to his freedom. We, too, know this feeling, but we call it sin. . . Morality such as this can hardly understand how Probabilism can be regarded in any other light than an invaluable aid in the moral conflict. For if we are justified in regarding the moral law as a bond and barrier to our freedom, we are also justified in defending our 'freedom' against this restraint" (p. 39). The reformers, however, have, according to Herrmann, recurred to the doctrine taught by Jesus, in which there are no rules, but only confidence in God and personal conscience, that imposes duties upon itself. They distinguished civil justice from spiritual justice, which is really moral goodness. It must be admitted that many Protestant Christians lose sight of this doctrine, when they assume that God has in particular revelations promulgated both written and spoken laws (pp. 35, etc., 44, etc.).
The system of Probabilism, described by Herrmann as unconscientious, has, in the opinion of Harnack, also tended to turn mortal into venial sins, and to weaken the force of moral convictions.{2} Dreydorff regards the probabilistic system as "the last stage on the way to moral degeneration," referring to Pascal in justification of his opinion.{3} Von Hoensbroech, of course, tries to prove that the Church as a whole is to blame for this "tendency" which destroys the moral and religious sense of responsibility.{4}
I
The subject has been so fully discussed in the two preceding chapters that there is no need for me to say much in order to elucidate the principles of the Church regarding law and liberty, nor to accept Herrmann's challenge, and draw an accurate comparison between "Roman and Protestant morality." In itself the question of Probabilism does not belong to these fundamental matters, since, apart from the fact that the name includes various tendencies in the Catholic teaching on morals, the whole discussion regarding the "moral systems" affects differences in moral science, rather than the real doctrines of the Church. As, however, the controversy is connected with ideas that are matters of principle, and as the practical application of Probabilism concerns the Church in her office of watching over and guarding morality, it behooves us to show how the system arose, and how its existence can be tolerated and justified by Christian moralists.
The moral law, according to the Catholic conception, is, as we have seen, the ordering of all our acts to the highest good, such ordering being based upon God and reflected in human nature. With her innate faculty of thought, reason accepts the justification and necessity of this ordering. Hence there arises an obligation that presents itself to the will as a binding law, and which the will in its inmost depths acknowledges to be just.{5} As its physical energy necessarily is directed to an ultimate end, viz., happiness, which dominates all our earthly efforts and desires, so the enlightened will also recognizes a moral end as unconditionally worthy of reverence, free from all "arbitrariness," and with its sacred necessity controlling all the lower spheres of activity. This moral end, the glory of God, materially coincides with the full development and discernment of the natural aim of the will.{6} Thus obligation and will are fundamentally in full agreement, and duty is not a barrier but the backbone and support of true freedom. Man's free will enables him to fall away from the moral order, and to prefer his own lower interests to the higher ones of God; but never yet has any Catholic writer on morals regarded a liberty to sin as a natural right belonging to the will, or even as a mark of freedom. It is, indeed, Scholasticism that regards sin as an interior contradiction of reason, as a culpable obscuring of the will;{7} and power to sin as indicating a defect in free will. Christ and the saints possess free will in greater perfection than we do, because in virtue of the contemplation of God they are raised above any obscurity in the moral judgment, above any wavering of the will between good and evil.{8}
Herrmann remarks, in opposition to my statements, that St. Thomas does not sum up the commandments into the uniform idea of the good; that "he even asserts that the commandments, which are impressed upon the nature of man, refer only to his outward and not to his inward acts."{9} The passage in St. Thomas, to which Herrmann is alluding, runs as follows: "Man is able to make laws on matters where he has power to judge. His judicial power, however, does not extend to inward acts, which are hidden, but only to outward behaviour, which becomes apparent. Yet for virtue to be perfect, a man must be morally just in both respects. Hence human law could not adequately prohibit and enjoin inward acts, and consequently it was necessary for the (positive) divine law to supplement it." St. Thomas is clearly speaking of human legislation and legal procedure, not of the natural law! His arguments cannot be overthrown by such superficial criticism! If Herrmann had only read the subsequent chapters in St. Thomas, he would have found that the various commandments are explicitly summed up in the uniform idea of the good. In answer to the question "whether the natural law contains several commandments or only one," St. Thomas says: "For every agent acts for the sake of an end that has a character of goodness." Hence the first principle in practical reason is one that is based on the nature of good; viz., that is good which all are striving to attain. The first commandment of the law, accordingly, is: You must do good and avoid evil; all the other commandments of the natural law are based upon this.{10}
It must be granted that, from the natural standpoint, the force of evil desires and the weakness and partiality of the empirical will are antagonistic to the moral commandment which the fundamental will recognizes. This causes the natural man often "to feel" the law to be a burden and barrier. The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and even in the spirit the lower inclinations of the creature oppose the impulse to rise to a higher life. But has Catholic teaching on morals ever sanctioned this opposition or ever described the unruly impulses of passion as freedom? The threats and promises of the divine law, which sustain the imperfect in the struggle, the emotions of fear and hope, which urge sinners to conversion, -- these may help to overcome the inward desire to sin; and if they do this, they represent the beginning of morality but not by any means perfect moral freedom, the true liberty "of the children of God." Fear, that only outwardly deters from sin, but allows the inward "opposition" to good to continue, is denounced by all Catholic teachers as servile and immoral.
The result of Christ's teaching, example, and grace has been to mightily increase and deepen our understanding of the law, and this has by no means been overlooked or obscured by Catholic moralists, but the question is whether our Lord meant that man "imposes the law upon himself," that His commandments "can only be obeyed by one whose own will is expressed by them."{11} We have already stated emphatically that we can obey a commandment only if our own will assents to it, and the fact that we are bound "by our own moral perception" is recognized in our definition of conscience. Herrmann ought to avoid ambiguous expressions of this kind when he is trying to find fault with the Catholic and Christian interpretation of the law. He appears to impute to Christ the opinion that the moral law is binding just because it is the outcome of a man's own perception and will, -- an idea that is contradicted by the plainest facts in the Gospel and by the unanimous opinion of all who have most deeply penetrated into its spirit. If Herrmann's view were correct, Christ would have said, not that He had come to fulfil the law of the old dispensation, but to repeal it. The law of Israel was the law of God -- "I am the Lord, thy God," and how loyally did Christ observe it, in order to set an example to all men! He sharply distinguished His own human will, wholly united as it was with God, from what presented itself to His human will as His lifework and law. "I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me."{12} When Jesus rejected ordinances of men it was because they had taken the place of "God's commandment";{13} a law, however, imposed as supreme arbiter by man upon himself would have seemed to Him a still worse "precept of man." He allowed human laws to participate in the authority of the divine: "He that heareth you, heareth me, and he that heareth me, heareth Him that sent me." St. Paul, when speaking of true liberty, says precisely that he has to make known a commandment of the Lord on the subject of the marriage of Christians, and he lays down a commandment of his own with reference to marriages between Christians and heathens.{14} The commandment of the Lord was by no means so self-evident that the Christians of that period might have imposed it upon themselves. In the Sermon on the Mount, to which Herrmann alludes, there is the command to love one's enemies, and to resist all revengeful and impure thoughts -- a command which most men even to-day do not recognize as the expression of their own will, but which they have to accept and respect as the will of One higher than themselves. We can see at the present time to what lengths the thoughts of honourable men can go with regard to the laws of marriage and chastity, if they follow only the voice of their own being! The freedom and independence in which Herrmann sees his ideals can only be attained when the will, by means of obedience to God's voice, has been gradually trained to a higher insight and morality.
That the Church takes pains to keep her members in a state of ignorance, incapable of understanding the inner meaning of the law, is a charge in support of which Herrmann can adduce no evidence. Christian habits and training, which the Church has done so much to promote, bring home to reason the important obligations of a Christian life, and these same obligations are adapted to the needs of the time and are impressed upon the hearts of the people by means of sermons and in the confessional. But what is still more important, the Church succeeds in keeping alive the thought of God, and in maintaining the right atmosphere for the solution of moral questions, by surrounding all earthly things with a religious consecration. Moreover, she has always made the love of God the centre of all virtue, and always recommended, as the chief method of awakening good will, the resolution to do everything for Him. This instruction and direction of the will affects the Catholic outlook on life so deeply, that the average man goes on his way with assurance and independence, as long as no extraordinary difficulties beset him.
Protestants misunderstand so completely the theology of the time preceding Luther, that it must be pointed out that Scholasticism, in speaking of the law of Christ, was not referring to anything like the Mosaic Law, nor even to the written words of the Gospel, but to something purely subjective, viz., to the feeling of faith and love awakened by the Holy Ghost in believers. St. Thomas devotes three long articles{15} to the lex evangelica or nova. They are quite in harmony with St. Paul's teaching about the "law of the spirit" and with that of St. James and St. John about the "perfect law of liberty" and the "unction that teacheth all things," and they are a direct continuation of St. Augustine's thoughts regarding love as the predominant law of the Christian life. "The essence of the new law is the grace of the Holy Ghost, revealed in faith efficacious through charity."{16} "The new law, the centre of which is the grace of the Spirit infused into the heart, is called the law of love," and whoever obeys it "inclines to the objects of virtue and especially of charity, as to something that is his own, not to anything foreign to him."{17}
According to St. Thomas, therefore, the law of Christ cannot be compared with "that of the state," or with any external regulation; in its depth, freedom, and life it resembles the law of nature, but is superior to it, because it affects not only our duty but also our will. Grace and love are powerful forces counteracting our evil inclinations, which, based upon nature, as St. Paul says, so often weaken the demands of morality.{18} Thus the Christian is a law to himself in a higher sense than the natural man; he is subject to God's law, but does not feel it as a crushing, external force; by grace he has become a participant in the divine life, has received the spirit of the law in faith, and has fulfilled it in love. "Those who possess charity are a law unto themselves, since charity guides them instead of law, and leaves them free to act according to their own impulse."{19} This does not diminish the binding force of the law, the duty to obey God. St. Augustine's words: "Love, and do what thou wilt," mean the same as St. John's: "Whoever is born of God, committeth not sin," -- a statement with which the apostle begins a sharp rejection of lax autonomy.{20} In as far as, and so long as, we love God and are born of God, we cannot sin. Love is "finis legis," not in the sense of being its termination, but in that of being its aim, "an aim in which the commandments are collected and fulfilled, not destroyed and cast aside."{21} A Christian's attitude towards the Law is one of "true freedom, owing to the delight that he takes in doing good, but also one of pious subjection, owing to the obedience due to God's commandment."{22} The positive law of God continues to be a restraint and barrier to the unruly and proud, but for the good it is a support and help "in order to attain that which they themselves have in mind."{23}
Christian liberty does not consist in denying the obligation of God's law, but love works the miracle of rendering the law not burdensome but comforting and sustaining. "Birds carry the burden of their wings -- and what do we say? They carry and are carried. They carry the wings on earth and are carried by them in the air. If you were sorry for a bird, especially in summer, and said: 'Its wings are a burden to the poor little creature,' and if you were to remove this burden, it would have to remain down on the ground, though you intended to benefit it. Therefore you, too, should bear the pinions of peace and put on the wings of love." It is by means of recognizing the laws of natural beauty, of lines, sounds, etc., as something outside and above himself, that an artist becomes great and free, that he steeps himself in them with all the power of his soul, and makes them part of his own being. The same is true of morals; we do not create the rules and ideals, but assimilate them by our efforts and obedience. The obligation of these laws is so great and at the same time so compelling, that we cannot wait to understand every single motive for obeying them, but must rise gladly to the most general of all, which is also the highest and most permanent -- "All for God and for His sake." It would be contrary to God's majesty and to the inner significance and dignity of morality, if faith and love made moral action "free" in the sense of no longer being strictly obligatory.
Herrmann is of opinion that no one can truly hear God's voice in the demands of morality, unless previously, from the meaning of moral ideas, he had recognized them to be unconditionally valid (p. 159). I maintain, on the contrary, that no one can recognize the unconditional validity of a moral law who has not previously grasped, or who does not simultaneously perceive, the fact that there is an absolute law higher than that of men. The absolute necessity of that which we call duty cannot be explained without the reference of all things to an end. The most certain individual duty, such as respect for human life, becomes relative and dependent on conditions just as soon as we consider its meaning only from the point of view of the nature and dignity of creatures. Nietzsche was perfectly logical in saying: "I deny any absolute morality, because I do not know of any absolute end of man."
But even the central position occupied by charity in Catholic morals is not enough to convince Herrmann of the uniformity of our conception of law. On the contrary, he thinks that "the moral obscurity" of St. Thomas can be detected in his manner of expounding the great commandment of love. St. Thomas did not, he considers, perceive that in this commandment "the command to love God as well as the one requiring us to love our neighbour expresses the whole law in a special manner, and that therefore each of them should fill the whole disposition of man." Consequently, that St. Thomas regarded it as "more meritorious to fulfil the commandment requiring us to love God directly, than to fulfil it in the commandment requiring us to love our neighbour" (p. 158, etc.). St. Thomas everywhere maintains most emphatically that the two commandments are but one, so inseparably are they connected. Even the "virtue" of love, i.e., the supernatural force and affection, is the same in the case both of God and one's neighbour; it is the cardinal virtue of charity. This is a very pregnant expression when it occurs in so strict a classification of virtues in accordance with their immediate objects. St. Thomas gives two reasons for this unity: 1. That love of God and love of one's neighbour have the same object, viz., divine goodness; 2. Love in each case is based upon everlasting happiness, and this is common to both.{24}
Supernatural charity "loves God in one's neighbour; it loves the latter because God is in him, or in order that God may be in him." {25} This does not mean that love of God and one's neighbour are absolutely the same. Christ requires us to love God with all our heart and all our strength, but, with regard to our neighbour, He only bids us love him as ourselves. Is there not a significant difference here? How is it possible from any point of view to think of God and man in the same way, without having a pantheistic idea of God? Can a love, founded on truth, endure and permit goodness that is finite to be regarded as equal to goodness that is infinite? Even if we say that we love God in helping our neighbour, the distinction still remains between what is primary and fundamental and what is secondary proceeding from it; this is a distinction of infinite importance to being and to loving.
St. Thomas requires us to love God more than ourselves, and quotes St. Augustine's words: "If thou must love thyself not for thine own sake, but for His who is the truest end of all thy love; then thy neighbour may not take offence if thou lovest him for God's sake." By way of elucidation, St. Thomas adds: "That, by which and for which another exists, possesses this being in a higher degree." Sed propter quod unumquodque et illud magis.{26} It is only through direct love of God that the spiritual life of man receives a completeness that harmonizes all its nobler tendencies; it is only through this love that we learn the real meaning of love of self and of our neighbour.
St. Thomas goes on to say that every member is naturally more concerned about the welfare of the whole than about its own, in the same way as a man involuntarily raises his hand to protect his head. This is doubly true of supernatural association in love. "A man must love God more than himself, as God is the common good of all (bonum commune omnium); in Him is bliss, as the common principle and source of all who can participate in bliss." St. Thomas often uses the expression that the bonum commune divinum is the object of love;{27} it bears an unmistakable stamp of the uniformity of his view, In the passage quoted by Herrmann,{28} St. Thomas does not, strictly speaking, say that it is more meritorious to fulfil the commandment of loving God directly than to fulfil it in loving one's neighbour; love to God must include love to one's neighbour as an intention.{29} He says, indeed, that in this unity the love of God as such is better and more meritorious; but is it fair to charge him with declaring "the service of God to be, in his opinion, higher than moral earnestness and fidelity"? According to St. Thomas, morality embraces the service both of God and man; in both there is need of moral earnestness and fidelity. The root of morality, the good whence it derives its obligatory character, is found in God, not in man, and therefore the direct love of God is placed on a higher level. Let us use a simile: If the activity of the body derives its human and moral value from that of the mind, the latter is itself higher; if all sciences go back in their principles to philosophy, this is the highest science of all.
Herrmann and many other Protestant theologians regard the love of one's neighbour, i.e., social conscientiousness, as the sole form of moral fidelity, and as the perfect equivalence and independent counterpart of love of God. Herrmann even defines the final aim of morality as the "spiritual community of mankind and the personal self control of the individual." Others prefer the theological view and speak of "the kingdom of God," but they are careful to eliminate any idea that God is in Himself the highest good, and the object of a special activity in the human soul.{30} I cannot here do more than indicate briefly how completely these writers depart in this respect from the spirit of the Gospel and of Christianity, which has always regarded the religious uplifting of the soul as its highest form of activity.
Modern ethical writers absolutely disregard God, but they are painfully aware of the discord between the individual and the social principle, between "personal independence" and "spiritual brotherhood of all mankind." The fact that they fail to assign any real meaning to either the one or the other indicates their helplessness, and it should make Christian students appreciate still more highly the wisdom and profundity of the commandment that represents love of God to be a real love proceeding from a man's whole heart, and his chief aim in life, and which derives from it real love of self and of his neighbour. The absence of this close union of the human and the divine, and also of the complete moral unity of life, may be traced to Luther and his conception of law. In the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul condemns the theory that sinful man can be justified by fulfilment of the law, whether it be the Jewish ceremonial law or the moral law. Luther, without any justification in the New Testament, extends this condemnation to the obligation of law in general, to the possibility of augmenting one's justice by fulfilment of the moral law and thus becoming worthy of eternal happiness. In his opinion the freedom of the children of God does not consist merely in the fact that the law does not condemn them, but in there being no law at all binding upon them. The commandments of God belong to the Old Testament; they prescribe moral purity only "in order that man may see and learn his inability to do good, and may despair of himself." According to Luther the New Testament contains no law but only promises; faith, which lays hold of the words of promise, is the "first great commandment," in which all the commandments are certainly and easily fulfilled. A Christian needs no works to make him pious and happy. i.e., to secure his justification and assurance of salvation; he is "undoubtedly released from all commandments and laws." This opinion is expressed again and again in as early a work as the "Freiheit eines Christenmenschen,"{31} but it is softened down here by allusions to the active charity that gratitude calls forth and that follows upon faith. Why did not Luther in this connection acknowledge the duty of moral activity? The objection that the idea of obligation brings with it a danger of self-righteousness or desire of reward, is merely a pretext, for nothing can be more foreign to the idea of duty than these considerations.
Luther seems always to have felt a binding law to be something terrible and unbearable. He could not understand how vigorous, moral liberty is compatible with an inward recognition of duty and responsibility. But a deeper reason was that, with his opinions regarding the corruption and bondage of mankind, it seemed to him impossible to fulfil the law. If the law were to be binding upon Christians as well as others, it would condemn them also and plunge them into despair. Luther did not deduce the other conclusion, more obvious from the philosophical point of view, that the law can neither bind nor terrify a will that is not free, simply because for it law has no meaning at all. "Papists," says Luther, "suppose that Christ said 'thou shalt,' and therefore I can. By no means, my friend; there is a great difference between being bound and being able to do a thing."{32}
As to the metaphysical aspect of free will, Luther could not see that God's omnipotence and human independence were compatible. As to the moral aspect of it, the living, organic connection between obligation and liberty was equally incomprehensible to him. In one place he denies human liberty, because he wishes to assert God's supremacy; in another, he denies God's law, in order not to limit the liberty of a Christian.{33}
When this opinion is further developed, so as to represent the law in contrast to the Gospel, Luther is thinking not merely of ritual, but also of moral laws, including the commandment of love. In his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, he argues that Christ was not a legislator like Moses, but the Lamb of God, bearing our sins. He did not teach what we ought to do, but did everything for us. Therefore, as soon as any question arises concerning our relation to God, we ought to forget the law, and be towards it not only blind and dumb, but altogether dead. A true Christian is "completely free from all laws, and subject to no law at all, either inwardly or outwardly."{34} The Papists are blind and foolish, not only because they require exterior works, but because they have made out of the Gospel a law of love that it is impossible to fulfil.{35}
"The old teaching of Moses is: Thou shalt fear, trust, and love God, and love thy neighbour as thyself. But the teaching of Christ is much higher and more glorious, for it does not tell us what we must do, such as is the peculiar office of a law."{36} "This preacher does not say that thou canst love God, nor how thou shouldst act and live, but he tells thee how thou must still become pious and happy even if thou canst not do it. . . . The law says: Thou shalt not sin; go and be pious, do this and that; but Christ says: Thou art not pious; but I have done all for thee, remissa sunt tibi peccata."{37} In this way Luther changed the one thing needful, piety and happiness, into a faith that is not moral activity but the assumption of a sanctity not one's own. Active morality on earth is not a moral law at all in the sense of being absolutely obligatory, it belongs to a lower and ultimately indifferent province. Herrmann agrees with Luther in regarding active morality of this kind as on a level with social obligations and charity towards one's neighbour, but they differ essentially in their valuation of it. Luther obscures the divine and eternally significant element in this moral activity concerning one's neighbour and puts it on a level with the civil order, but Herrmann exalts it to full equality and identity with what is divine, regarding it as primary morality. Both Herrmann and Luther fail to understand Christ's great commandment, according to which love of God is made known as the most lively expression of fundamental morality, and is, consequently, on the one hand our highest absolute duty, and, on the other, the chief stimulus to energetic action on our part for the welfare of mankind.{38}
{1} Röm. u. evang. Sittlichkeit, 2d ed., p. 28. 176
{2} Supra, p. 5.
{3} Pascal, p. 176.
{4} Die ultram. Moral, p. 68. Kauff mann and Berndt, in their "Hilfsbuch für den Geschichtsunterricht" for seminaries, 3d ed., 1911, p. 407, say with regard to the morals of the Society of Jesus: "A Jesuit has no absolute spiritual principle by which to regulate his own life and that of others, except the authority of the Pope and of the General of his own Order. In all other matters he can attain to nothing but on uncertain probability (Probabilism)." "Any opinion is probable, i.e., fit to follow, for which reasons of some weight are to be found. Whoever acts upon such opinions, does not burden his conscience, even if he is convinced of the immorality of his behaviour." What a number of slanders are contained in these sentences, and to what prejudices must they give rise!
{5} Cf. Chap. I.
{6} Cf. Chap. IV.
{7} De malo, q. 1, q. 6.
{8} St. Thomas, S. theol., I, q. 94, a. 1; cf. St. Augustine's beautiful thoughts regarding the beata necessitas of the saints (Op. inp. c. Jul. I, 102, seq.; VI, 11, 19).
{9} S. theol., I, II, q. 94, a. 4.
{10} S. theol., I, II, q. 94, a. 2; cf. also supra, pp. 134, seq.
{11} Herrmann, pp. 44, 46.
{12} John vi. 38; cf. Mark xiv. 36.
{13} Mark vii. 7.
{14} 1 Cor. vii.
{15} S. theol., I, II, q. 106-108.
{16} q. 108, a. 1.
{17} q. 107, a. 1 ad 2.
{18} q. 106, a. 1 ad 2.
{19} S. c. Gentil., III, 128. St. Thomas here refers to a misunderstanding then already existing, and afterwards propagated by Luther: quasi justi non TENEANTUR ad legem implendam.
{20} 1 John iii. 9.
{21} Aug. in Ps. xxxi. 5.
{22} Aug., Enchir., n. 9.
{23} Thorn., S. theol, I, II, q. 98, a. 6 a. Aug., Sermo 164, 7.
{24} S. theol., II, II, q. 23, a. 5.
{25} Qu. disp. de car., a. 4.
{26} S. theol., II, II, q. 26, a 3.
{27} S. theol., I, q. 60, a. 5; I, II, q. 19, a. 10; Ep. ad Rom. ad 1, 20.
{28} S. theol., II, II, q. 182, a. 2.
{29} In the sentence, "Deum diligere secundum se est magis meritorium quae diligere proximum," it is not accurate to translate secundum se by one or alone. Moreover, the punctuation should be: Deum diligere, secundum se est magis meritorium, etc., as appears from the words that follow: potest tamen contingere, quod aliquis in operibus vitae activae plus mereatur.
{30} Cf. infra, Chap. VI; also Mausbach, Die Ethik des hl. Augustinus, I, 190.
{31} Erlangen ed., XXVII, 180, etc., 192, etc.
{32} Erlangen ed., XLV, 180.
{33} Köstlin acknowledges that, according to Luther, it is impossible to speak of free will in the case of a just man; the freedom ascribed to him -- i.e., his vigorous and joyous behaviour -- must be regarded purely as an effect of divine grace (I, 218).
{34} Walch, VIII, 1827, 1883, 1885, 1890; cf. supra, p. 148.
{35} Ibid., 1693.
{36} Walch, V, 187.
{37} 7, 2322; ibid., 10, 1461: The law makes us desperate; the Gospel shows that "the law having been fulfilled by Jesus Christ, it is now not necessary to fulfil it by our own obedience." Luther describes as obscure and difficult the words of Christ: If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He assumes that they express what ought to be, but not what can be. Cf. p. 188, note 1.
{38} Herrmann reproaches Catholic ethics with setting the moral law on a level with state regulations, made for the maintenance of public order. This is what Luther actually does.