had redoubled when speaking of the religious. According to the testimony of the religious and theological literature of that day, the monastic Orders were better instructed in the meaning and importance of outward observances than Luther here assumes. Expounders of the Rules and ascetical writers speak an altogether different language. In the monasteries the distinction between the observances which were enjoined under pain of grievous sin and were, therefore, under no circumstances to be omitted, and such as were binding under the Rule but not under pain of sin, was well understood, and a third category was allowed, viz. such as were undertaken voluntarily, for instance, the construction of churches, or their adornment. It was also known, and that not only in religious houses—for the popular manuals of that day set it forth clearly—that for an action to be good the motive of perfect love, which Luther represented as indispensable,[713] was not requisite, but that other religious motives, such as the fear of punishment of sin, were sufficient though it was, indeed, desirable to rise to a higher level. Above all, it was well known that the disinclination towards what is good, which springs from man’s sensual nature like the temptation to indolence which still held sway even in religious, are not sin but may be made the subject of a meritorious struggle. The formalism which it is true was widely prevalent in the religious life at that time was due not so much to a faulty conception of the religious state as to the inadequate fulfilment of its obligations and its ideals. This deterioration was not likely to be remedied by the application of the mistaken idea which Luther advocated, namely, that not the slightest trace of human weakness must be allowed to enter into the performance of good works, otherwise they became utterly worthless. His stipulation that everything must be done from the highest “_spiritus internus_,” could only be the result of his extravagant mysticism. The Rules of no Order, not even that of the Augustinians, went so far as this. Yet the Rule of Luther’s Augustinian Congregation did not seek a merely outward, Pharisaical carrying out of its regulations, but a life where the duties of the religious state were performed in accordance with the inward spirit of the Order. Luther’s master, the Augustinian Johann Paltz, emphasises this spirit very strongly in the instructions which he issued for the preservation of the true ideals of the Order.