For “this is how it takes place,” he says, in a carefully considered instruction, “God’s Word comes to me without any co-operation on my part. I may, it is true, do this much, go and hear it, read it, or preach it, so that it may sink into my heart. And this is the real preparation which lies not in man’s powers and ability, but in the power of God. Hence there is no better preparation on our part for all the sacraments than to suffer God to work in us. This is a brief account of the preparation.”[639] Yet he himself perceived the peril of teaching that “those people were fit to receive the sacrament whose hearts had been touched by the Word of God so that they believed, and that whoever did not feel himself thus moved should remain away.” He says: “I remark in many, myself included, how the evil spirit, by insisting too much upon the right side, makes people lazy and slow to receive the sacrament, and that they refuse to come unless they feel assured that their faith has been enkindled. This also is dangerous.” Nevertheless he will have no “self-preparation”; such preparation, “by means of one’s own works,” appeared to him Popish; it was loathsome to God, and the doctrine of “faith alone” should be retained, even though “reason be unable to understand it.”[640] Hence it is not surprising that he declared it to be a dreadful “error and abuse” that we should venture to prepare ourselves for the sacrament by our own efforts, as those do who strive to make themselves worthy to receive the sacrament by confession and other works.[641] He storms at those priests who require contrition from the sinner who makes his confession; his opinion is that they are mad, and that, instead of the keys, they were better able to wield pitchforks.[642] Even “were Christ Himself to come and speak to you as He did to Moses and say, ‘What hast thou done?’ kill Him on the spot.”[643] “Contrition only gives rise to despair, and insults God more than it appeases Him.”[644] Such language may be explained by the fact, that, in his theory, contrition is merely consternation and terror at God’s wrath produced by the accusations of the law; the troubled soul ought really to take refuge behind the Gospel.—How entirely different had been the preparation recommended by the Church in previous ages for the reception of the sacraments! She indeed enjoined contrition, but as an interior act issuing in love and leading to the cleansing of the soul. According to Luther, however, excessive purity of soul was not advisable, and only led to presumption. “The devil is a holy fellow,” he had said, “and has no need of Christ and His Grace”; “Christ dwells only in sinners.”