When, at the commencement of 1520, he wrote his detailed “Sermon on Good Works”--to complete, or rather to vindicate, his theory of faith alone against the objections raised--dedicating it to Duke Johann of Saxony, he there expressed himself so unhesitatingly in favour of independent moral activity as to make it appear quite free and meritorious. “Since man’s nature and disposition cannot remain for a moment without doing or omitting, suffering or fleeing--for life is ever restless, as we see--let whoever aspires to piety and good works begin to exercise himself in living and working at all times in this belief, learning to do or leave undone all things in this assurance [of faith], and he will then find how much there is to keep him busy.” Doing thus the believer will find that everything is right, for “it must be good and meritorious.”[673] Even concerning faith we read in this remarkable work, that it must be united to charity, nay, that this must precede it, though charity is in reality the peculiar and noblest work of an unfettered will which strives after God. “Such confidence and faith brings with it charity and hope, indeed, if we regard it aright, charity comes first, or at least with faith.”[674] At a time when he was already quite convinced of the absence of free-will, Luther wrote, in October, 1520, his tract “On the Freedom of a Christian man.”[675] There he teaches that the Christian is “free lord of all and subject to none.” The servitude of the body does not extend to the soul; in God’s Holy Word the soul lives a free and godly life, enjoying wisdom, liberty and everything that is good; true, the interior man, in his freedom and righteousness by faith, has no need of any law or good works, but, since we are not altogether spiritual, we are obliged to exercise the body by means of discipline lest it resist the interior man, i.e. the will which rebels against God must be “quelled” more and more, so far as the carnal mind calls for subjugation, in order that the works which proceed from faith may be performed out of pure charity. In all his works man must endeavour to direct his intention towards serving and being helpful to his neighbour. This is to serve God freely and joyfully; by thus acting he will defy the upholders of ceremonies and the enemies of liberty who cling to the ordinances of the Church. In this way Luther is teaching the true Christian freedom, which “sets the heart free from all sins, laws and ordinances, and which is as far above all other liberty as the heavens are above the earth.”[676]--And yet, after his previous assertions against free-will, we are forced to ask whether he had not himself destroyed the basis of all this, for the free-will he attacked was the fundamental condition of all spiritual action which might be called free, and surely quite essential to his vaunted “Christian freedom.”