Review of Jay T. Collier, Debating Perseverance: The Augustinian Heritage in Post-Reformation England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018) (original) (raw)

Luther maintained this spiritual approach in the summer of 1518. Despite the growing theological controversies, which forced him now to limit his discussion of penance to theological questions, he continued to touch on other, spiritual issues in the few pastoral writings he still had the time for. For the following year, 1519, Johnson describes Luther as emphasizing more than before the friendly and loving side of God, a change evident in comparing Luther's treatments of Christ's Passion in 1518 and 1519 (118). In doctrinal terms one sees foreshadowed here Luther's concept of law and Gospel, but Johnson as a historian of spirituality is right to avoid these dogmatic categories. At the same time, she also remarks on Luther's advice on other parts of religious life, including Christian prayer as an interior, deeply grounded practice. The issues Luther now addressed followed principles laid down in 1518. From this it is a consequent, though not necessary, step to reform not only individual practice but also the rites of the church. According to Johnson, Luther takes this step in the months from fall 1519 to summer 1520, when he developed a new understanding of the sacraments. Johnson ends her investigation with the sermon on good works, appearing just before the address to the German nobility. She has shown how Luther came gradually to a point where reform became real Reformation. Johnson does not need dogmatic theology to demonstrate this; she almost does not need the controversy, as she can show Luther's development through the spiritual treatises themselves. With this, she has broadened our view on Martin Luther's early development remarkably. One might wonder if after more than one hundred years of research about the young Luther there is still something new to detect. Johnson has shown that indeed there is.