De gratia Redemptoris

According to Luther, original sin is concupiscence itself. “What then is original sin now? First, according to the subtleties of the scholastic theologians, it is the privation or lack of original justice. But justice, according to them, is in the will only as in a subject, and therefore its opposite privation is there as well. Because, namely, it lies in the predicament of quality according to logic and metaphysics. Secondly, however, according to the Apostle and the simplicity of the sense, in Christ Jesus it is not only the privation of a quality in the will, nay, not even only the privation of light in the intellect and of virtue in the memory, but absolutely the privation of all rectitude and power of all the powers both of body and of soul and of the whole man, interior and exterior. Moreover the very proneness to evil, nausea at good, distaste for light and wisdom, but love of error and darkness, flight from and abomination of good works, and a running to evil... Therefore, as the ancient holy fathers rightly said: that sin of origin is the tinder itself, the law of the flesh, the law of the members, the languor of nature, the tyrant, the disease of origin, etc.”¹.

But this concupiscence is truly sin, a fault, and it remains even after baptism. “But I know what they will object to me here, namely that all the things that have been said² prove that not sin but a defect or infirmity is left in us after baptism. For so they call the tinder and the passions of the flesh... But that they so call it a defect as to deny that it is sin, and wish it to be not a fault but only the punishment of sin, I cannot admit... But let us see on what reasoning they are moved to deny that the lust remaining after baptism is called sin. For they say that it is an injury to baptism if it be not said to bestow the remission of all sins, as the catholic faith of the Church and the holy Gospel holds. If therefore all sins are remitted, what remains ought not to be called sin. I answer: what can I say here, except what Augustine said to the Pelagians who pressed the same argument? namely that sin is remitted as to guilt, but not as to act; or, to use his own words, That sin passes in guilt, it remains in act. For as, as he also says, some sin passes in act and remains in guilt (as every actual sin does), so on the contrary this sin of origin passes in guilt and remains in act. Behold, he does not deny that it is sin, nor does he say that it is only a defect or a punishment, but that it is sin in act and truly”³.

By original sin man is wholly vitiated. “The just man sins mortally in a good work”⁴. The article 35 condemned by the Supreme Pontiff, “No man is certain that he does not always sin mortally, on account of the most hidden vice of pride,” he “revokes” in these words: “I revoke therefore this article and moderate it in this manner: No man ought not to be most certain that he always sins mortally, if his life be compared with the most just judgment of God: for his life is necessarily as unjust as the judgment of God is just, before which it cannot stand. But that judgment is most just, wherefore his life is most unjust and must be preserved only by the covering of mercy”⁵.

Nay, as the condemned article 36 says: “Free will after sin is a thing of mere title, and while it does what is in it, it sins mortally.” “Jeremiah also, chapter 10, says thus: I know, Lord, that the way of man is not his own, neither is it for a man to direct his steps. What could be said more openly? If his way and his steps are not in the power of man, how shall the way of God and the steps of God be in his power? For the way of man is that which they themselves call the natural power of doing what is in him. Behold, this is not in the choice of man or of free will: what then is free will but a thing of mere title? How can it prepare itself for good, when it is not even in its power to make its ways evil? For God works even evil works in the impious, as Proverbs 16 says: The Lord has made all things for himself, even the impious for the evil day; and Rom 1: God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, that they might do things that are not fitting; and 9: Whom he wills he hardens, and on whom he wills he has mercy. As also Exod 9 says of Pharaoh: for this very purpose have I raised you up, that I may show my power in you. For this cause God is terrible in his judgments and works”⁶. “So then that general influence also has perished, about which they prate, that it is in our power to perform natural operations: that the matter stands otherwise, the experience of all men shows. And see us senseless men: the very root of works, namely life itself, which is the head of all works, we all know is not for a moment in our hand, and do we dare to say that any thought is in our hand? What more absurd could be said? He therefore who has kept our life in his hand, has he placed our motions and works in our hand? Far be it. Whence there is no doubt that, with Satan for teacher, this name ‘free will’ has come into the Church, to seduce men from the way of God into their own ways”⁷. “Whence this article also must be revoked. For I said badly that free will before grace is a thing of mere title, but I ought simply to have said: free will is a fiction among things, or a title without a thing. Because it is in no man's hand to think anything evil or good, but all things (as the article of Wycliffe condemned at Constance rightly teaches) come to pass by absolute necessity”⁸. “The inconstancy of human affairs, or (as they call it) contingency, deceives these wretched men: for they plunge their foolish eyes into the things themselves and the works of things, and never raise them to the sight of God, so as to know things above things in God. For to us looking down to the lower things, things appear arbitrary and fortuitous, but to those looking up to the higher all things are necessary, because we do not live, act and suffer all things and all, as we will, but as he wills. Free will ceases in respect of God, which appears in respect of us and temporal things: for there, as James says, there is no change nor shadow of vicissitude, but here all things are changed and varied. And we fools judge divine things according to these temporal things, so as to presume with free will to anticipate God and to extort grace from him as from one sleeping, whenever it has pleased us, as though he could be changed with us and will what he once did not will, and that by our free will working and willing: O fury of furies, the newest of all! And Paul says Eph 2: We also were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. If all who are outside grace are children of wrath from nature itself, then free will also is a child of wrath from its own nature: if from its own nature, much more from all its works. But what can be a child of wrath by nature, except that all things it does are evil, preparing not for grace but for wrath, nay rather meriting wrath? Go now, Pelagians, and prepare yourselves for grace by your works, when Paul here says that they merit nothing but wrath. It would have been milder if he had only said ‘We were children of wrath,’ but by adding ‘by nature’ he certainly willed it to be understood that all that we are and do by nature is nothing but a merit of wrath, by no means of grace. You will scarcely find in the Scriptures a shorter, clearer and more powerful sentence against free will”⁹.

The denial of free will in Luther is founded not only on the doctrine of original sin, but also on the doctrine of God and of his universal efficacious operation, as clearly appears from his work “De servo arbitrio”, in which, in the year 1525, he answers the work of Erasmus “Diatribe de libero arbitrio”¹⁰. “And so this also is above all necessary and salutary for a Christian, to know that God foreknows nothing contingently, but that he foreknows, purposes and does all things by an immutable, eternal and infallible will. By this thunderbolt free will is laid low and utterly crushed; therefore those who wish free will to be asserted must either deny this thunderbolt, or dissemble it, or drive it from them by some other reasoning... Or do you believe that he foreknows unwillingly, or wills unknowingly? If he foreknows willingly, the will is eternal and immutable (because by nature); if he wills foreknowing, the knowledge is eternal and immutable (because by nature)”¹¹.

“The sophists have sweated over this for many years now, and at last, conquered, they have been forced to concede that all things indeed come to pass necessarily, by the necessity of consequence (as they say), but not by the necessity of the consequent. Thus they eluded the force of this question, but rather mocked themselves. For how empty this is, I shall not be reluctant to show. They call it the necessity of consequence, to speak crudely, that if God wills something, it is necessary that it come about, but it is not necessary that that be which comes about. For God alone is necessarily, all other things can not be, if God wills. So they say that the action of God is necessary, if he wills, but that the thing done itself is not necessary. But what do they effect by these mockeries of words? This, namely, that the thing done is not necessary, that is, has not a necessary essence, which is to say nothing else than that the thing done is not God himself. Nevertheless this remains, that every thing comes about necessarily, if the action of God is necessary, or the necessity of consequence, however much the thing done is not necessarily, that is, is not God, or has not a necessary essence. For if I come about necessarily, it moves me little that my being or my coming about is mutable; nevertheless I, that contingent and mutable one, who am not the necessary God, come about. Wherefore their mockery, that all things come about by the necessity of consequence but not by the necessity of the consequent, has nothing else than this, that all things indeed come about necessarily, but so done they are not God himself. But what need was there for us to say this? As though it were to be feared that we should assert that things done are God, or have a divine and necessary nature. So stands and remains invincible the sentence, that all things come about by necessity”¹².

“Reason and the Diatribe¹³ concede that God works all things in all, and that without him nothing is done or is efficacious. For he is omnipotent, and this belongs to his omnipotence, as Paul says to the Ephesians¹⁴. Now Satan and man, fallen and deserted by God, cannot will good, that is, the things that please God or that God wills. But they are turned to their own desires perpetually, so that they cannot but seek the things that are their own. This will therefore and nature of theirs, thus turned away from God, is not nothing. For neither is Satan and the impious man nothing, nor have they no nature or will, although they have a corrupt and averse nature. That remnant therefore of nature which we say is in the impious man and in Satan, as creature and work of God, is not less subject to the omnipotence and action of God than all other creatures and works of God. When therefore God moves and acts all things, he necessarily moves and acts also in Satan and the impious man. But he acts in them in such manner as they are and as he finds them, that is, since they are averse and evil and are carried along by that motion of the divine omnipotence, they do nothing but averse and evil things, as if a rider rode a three-footed or a two-footed horse: he indeed acts in such manner as the horse is, that is, the horse goes badly. But what is the rider to do? He rides such a horse together with sound horses; for that one badly, for these well; he cannot do otherwise, unless the horse be healed. Here you see that God, when he works in the evil and through the evil, causes evil things indeed to be done, yet that God cannot do evil, although he does evil things through the evil, because he who is good cannot do evil, but he uses evil instruments, which cannot escape the impulse and motion of his power. The fault therefore is in the instruments, which God does not suffer to be idle, that evil things are done, while God himself moves. Not otherwise than if a smith should cut badly with a saw-toothed and jagged axe. Hence it comes about that the impious man cannot but always err and sin, because, moved by the impulse of the divine power, he is not suffered to be idle, but wills, desires and does in such manner as he himself is”¹⁵.

“But why does he not at the same time change the evil wills which he moves? This belongs to the secrets of his majesty, where his judgments are incomprehensible. Nor is it ours to ask this, but to adore these mysteries”¹⁶.

“When now the Diatribe argues: Does the good Lord bewail the death of his people, which he himself works in them? For this seems too absurd. We answer, as we have now said: one thing it is to dispute of God or of the will of God as preached, revealed, offered and worshipped to us, and another of God not preached, not revealed, not offered, not worshipped. Insofar therefore as God hides himself and wills to be unknown by us, he is nothing to us. For here that saying truly holds: The things that are above us are nothing to us... So we say: the good God does not bewail the death of the people which he works in them, but he bewails the death which he finds in the people and studies to remove. For this the preached God does, that, sin and death being taken away, we may be saved. For he sent his word and healed us. But the God hidden in majesty neither bewails nor takes away death, but works life, death and all things in all. For neither has he then defined himself by his word, but has reserved himself free above all things. But the Diatribe mocks itself by its ignorance, while it distinguishes nothing between the preached and the hidden God, that is, between the word of God and God himself. Many things God does which he has not shown us by his word. Many things also he wills which he has not shown by his word that he wills. Thus he does not will the death of the sinner, by his word namely, but he wills it by that inscrutable will. But now we must look to the word and leave that inscrutable will. For we must be directed by the word, not by that inscrutable will. And indeed who could direct himself to a will wholly inscrutable and unknowable? It is enough to know only that there is a certain inscrutable will in God. But what, why and how far he wills it, this it is by no means permitted to ask, to wish, to care for or to touch, but only to fear and to adore. Rightly therefore it is said: If God does not will death, it is to our will that it must be imputed that we perish. Rightly, I say, if you have spoken of the preached God. For he wills all men to be saved, while he comes by the word of salvation to all, and the fault is of the will which does not receive him, as Matth 23 says: How often would I have gathered your children, and you would not? But why that majesty does not take away or change this fault of our will in all, since it is not in the power of man, or why he imputes it to him, since man cannot be without it, it is not permitted to ask; and if you ask much, you will nevertheless never find, as Paul says Rom 11: Who are you, that you answer God?”¹⁷.

“Let countless thousands of most approved doctors be blind here, and let them feign that the Scriptures are not clear and tremble at a difficult question. We have most clear words, which sound thus: On whom he wills he has mercy, and whom he wills he hardens; likewise: You say therefore to me: what then is the complaint? Who resists his will? Nor is the question difficult; nay, nothing is easier even by common sense than that this consequence is certain, solid and true: if God foreknows, it comes about necessarily, once this has been presupposed from the Scriptures, that God neither errs nor is deceived. That the question is difficult I confess, nay impossible, if you wish to establish both at once, the foreknowledge of God and the freedom of man”¹⁸.

Therefore man is without free will, and his natural powers are wholly corrupted by original sin. “The scholastics dispute that original justice was not connatural, but as it were a certain adornment added to man as a gift: as if someone should place a crown on a beautiful maiden. The crown certainly is not a part of the maiden's nature but something separate from nature, which comes from without and can again be taken away without violation of nature. Wherefore they dispute concerning man and the demons that, although they have lost original justice, yet their natural powers have remained pure, as they were created in the beginning. But this opinion, because it lessens original sin, is to be fled like poison. Nay, let us hold this, that justice was not a certain gift which came from without, separate from the nature of man, but was truly natural, so that it was the nature of Adam to love God, to believe God, to know God, etc. These things were as natural in Adam as it is natural that the eyes receive light. But because, if you make the eye diseased by inflicting a wound, you rightly say that nature has been violated, so after man has fallen from justice into sin, it is rightly and truly said: his natural powers are not entire but corrupted by sin. For as the nature of the eye is to see, so the nature of reason and will in Adam was to know God, to trust God, to fear God. Since it is now certain that these things have been lost, who is so mad as to say that his natural powers are still entire? And yet nothing was more usual or more received in the Schools than this opinion. But how much more absurd is it to affirm this of the demons, whom Christ says did not stand in the truth and whom we know to be the fiercest enemies of Christ and of the Church? Entire therefore were the natural powers in man: the knowledge of God, faith, fear, etc. These Satan has so corrupted by sin that, as leprosy infects the flesh, so the will and reason have been so vitiated by sin that they not only no longer love God but flee him and hate him and desire to be and to live without him”¹⁹.

The whole man is bound by sin, and whatever he does is sin. “We conclude therefore universally: that man without the Holy Spirit and without grace can do nothing but sin, and so he goes on into infinity, from sin to sin... All these passages are most general and conclude most strongly for us: that without the Holy Spirit, whose giver is Christ alone, man can do nothing else than err and sin. Therefore Christ also says in the Gospel: I am the vine, you the branches; without me you can do nothing.

But you are without me as a branch cut off, withered, dead and ready for the fire”²⁰.

A neutral act, one that is morally good but neither justice nor sin, is not admitted. “But if he who is a servant of God will not be justified in the judgment of God, nor all the living, among whom it is necessary that some be most holy, if we believe that the holy Church, the communion of saints, lives on earth, who nevertheless fulfil the law, of what frenzy, do you think, are those who rage outside grace and outside the Church, saying that the law can be fulfilled by natural powers as to the whole substance of the deed, though not as to the intention of the one commanding? To this, that I may return again to the Hussite article condemned at Constance, how great an error it is to say that an act neutral and not evil is found, when the act of the just is not justifiable before God!”²¹. “Where then are our neutrals, who have feigned a middle state between sin and the justice of faith, namely the morally good, when the Apostle calls the very justice of the law dead? But nothing is called dead by the Apostle except what is first sin, as he says: but the sting of death is sin. and Rom V: by sin death. Not therefore is some work dead and not mortal (as they say) or not meritorious, but it is at once dead and sin”²².

But all sins are of themselves mortal; by reason of the person, however, there can be talk of venial sins. “Sin is truly sin, whether you have committed it before or after Christ is known. And God hates sin, nay every sin, as to the substance of the deed, is mortal. But that it is not mortal to the believer comes about through Christ the propitiator, who expiated sin by his death. To the one who does not believe in Christ not only are all sins mortal, but even his good works are sins, according to that saying: whatever is not of faith is sin. Therefore the Sophists err perniciously, who distinguish sins by the substance of the deed, not by the person.

He who believes has the same and equally great sin as the unbeliever. Yet to the believer it is pardoned and not imputed, to the unbeliever it is retained and imputed. To this one it is venial, to that one mortal, not because of a difference of sins, in that the believer's sin is less and the unbeliever's greater, but because of the difference of persons. For the believer knows that his sin has been forgiven him for Christ's sake, who expiated it by his death. Therefore he who has sin and yet sins remains pious. On the contrary the unbeliever, sinning, remains impious. And this is truly the wisdom and consolation of the pious, that even if they have sins and commit them, they yet know that they are not imputed to them for their faith in Christ”²³.

The meritorious work of man is denied. “Condemnable therefore is the pernicious and impious opinion of the Papists, who attribute to the work wrought the merit of grace and of the remission of sins. For they say: a good work before grace avails to obtain grace of congruity. But grace having been obtained, the work that follows merits eternal life of condignity. So that a man existing in mortal sin without grace, if with a good natural intention he does a good work, that is, reads or hears Mass, gives alms, etc., he merits grace of congruity. Grace thus obtained of congruity, he now does a work condign and meritorious of eternal life. In the first, indeed, God is not a debtor, but, because he is good and just, it befits him to approve such a work even done in mortal sin and to render grace for such an office. But after grace he has now become a debtor and is compelled by right to give eternal life, because now it is not only a work of free will, done according to substance, but also done in sanctifying grace, that is, in love. This is the Theology of the Kingdom of Antichrist, which I therefore mention, that the disputation of Paul may be the better understood. For opposites placed side by side become more illustrious. Then, that it may be plain how far these blind men and leaders of the blind²⁴ have wandered from the truth, and how by this their impious and blasphemous doctrine they have not only obscured but simply taken away the Gospel and overwhelmed Christ. For if I, existing in mortal sin, can do some little work which is not only according to substance pleasing to God, but can even merit grace of congruity; and when I have grace, I can do works according to grace, that is, love, and acquire by right eternal life: what need have I now of the grace of God, the remission of sins, the promise, the death and victory of Christ? Christ is plainly now idle for me. For I have free will and powers of doing a good work through which I merit grace of congruity and afterwards eternal life of condignity”²⁵.

“Wherefore with Paul we wholly deny the merit of congruity and condignity, and with sure confidence we pronounce that these speculations are mere mockeries of Satan, never done nor shown by examples. For God has never given to anyone grace and eternal life for the merit of congruity and condignity”²⁶.

From what has been said it easily appears that if any change intervenes in the relation of the sinful man to God (justification), the man himself in this business is wholly passive. Christ satisfied God for men and redeemed them by his death, who also intercedes for us. But man becomes partaker of this redemption of Christ by faith. This faith is rather a passion than an action; it is not to do, but to receive. “For they do not know (the Sophists) that faith is a change and renewal of the whole nature, so that the ears, the eyes, the heart itself hear, see and feel wholly otherwise than all other men. For faith is a living and powerful thing: it is not an idle thought, nor does it float upon the heart like a goose upon the water: but as water heated by fire, although it remains water, is nevertheless no longer cold but hot and wholly other water: so faith, the work of the Holy Spirit, forms another mind and other senses, and makes man wholly new. Faith therefore is an operative, difficult and powerful thing: and if we wish truly to estimate it, it is more a passion than an action, for it changes minds and senses”²⁷. “A sublime and great thing it is to have God propitious. Therefore there is need there of a far other Mediator than Moses, or the Law, than our will, than even the grace which they call the charity of God. Here it is wholly fitting that we do nothing, but only receive the treasure, which is Christ apprehended in the heart by faith, even though we feel ourselves to be most full of sins”²⁸. “For this is the true way of salvation, to be subject to God, in faith to yield and be silent to him, to put away the tumult of the presumption of works, by which the impious seek to find him, and to offer oneself docile, that he may work in us, not we ourselves”²⁹.

Faith is a certain confidence. “About the word³⁰ I do not greatly contend, whether you take it for ‘to repute’ or ‘to think’, for the matter comes to the same. For when the divine majesty thinks of me that I am just, that my sins are forgiven me, that I am free from eternal death, and I with thanksgiving in faith apprehend this thought of God concerning me, I am truly just, not by my works, but by faith, by which I apprehend the divine thought. For the thought of God is infallible truth. Therefore when I apprehend it with a firm thought, not with a vague and doubtful opinion, I am just. For faith is a firm and certain, whether thought or confidence, concerning God, that through Christ he is propitious, that through Christ he thinks of us thoughts of peace, not of affliction or of wrath. For these are correlatives, the thought of God, or the promise, and the faith by which I apprehend the promise of God. Rightly therefore did Paul render the word (Haschab) by the word λογίζεσθαι, which also alludes to thought, like the word ‘to repute’. For if you believe God promising, God reputes you just. Nor is mention here made either of the Law, or of circumcision, or of sacrifices, that God would deign them as justice: his own reputing alone, that one thought of grace concerning us, does this. For justice is given to Abraham not working, but believing: nor yet is it given to faith as to our work, but because of the thought of God, which faith apprehends³¹.

This faith is wholly certain. “Let us therefore give thanks to God, that we have been delivered from this monster of uncertainty, and can now firmly determine that the Holy Spirit cries and utters that ineffable groan in our hearts. And this is our foundation: the Gospel bids us look not at our good deeds and our perfection, but at God himself promising, at Christ himself the Mediator. On the contrary the Pope bids us look not at God promising, not at Christ the Priest, but at our works and merits. There doubt and despair necessarily follow, but here certainty and the joy of the Spirit, because I cling to God, who cannot lie; for he says: Behold, I give my Son to death, that he may redeem you by his blood from sins and death. There I cannot doubt, unless I wish wholly to deny God. And this is the reason why our Theology is certain: because it takes us from ourselves and places us outside ourselves, that we may not rely on our own powers, conscience, sense, person, works, but rely on that which is outside us, that is, on the promise and truth of God, which cannot deceive. This the Pope does not know, and therefore he thus impiously trifles with his furies, saying that no man knows, not even the just and wise, whether they are worthy of love, etc. Nay, if they are just and wise, they certainly know that they are loved by God; or they are not just and wise”³².

By faith the justice of Christ becomes our justice. “Therefore by faith in Christ the justice of Christ becomes our justice, and all things that are his, nay he himself becomes ours. Therefore the Apostle calls it the justice of God, to Ro I. The justice of God is revealed in the Gospel, as it is written: The just man lives by faith. Finally faith itself is called the justice of God, as in the same epistle 3: we reckon that a man is justified by faith. This is an infinite justice and absorbing all sins in a moment, because it is impossible that sin should cling in Christ: but he who believes in Christ clings in Christ and is one with Christ, having the same justice with him. Therefore it is impossible that sin remain in him. And this justice is the first, the foundation, the cause, the origin of all proper or actual justice, because it is truly given in place of the original justice lost in Adam, and works that, nay greater than that original justice would have worked. Thus is understood that word of Ps XXX.

In you, Lord, have I hoped, let me not be confounded for ever: in your justice deliver me; not in mine, but in yours, he says, that is, in the justice of Christ my God, which is through faith, through grace, through the mercy of God made ours; and this is called in the psalter, in many places, the work of the Lord, confession, the power of God, mercy, truth, justice. All these are names of faith in Christ, nay of the justice which is in Christ. Whence the Apostle to the Gal 2 dares to say: I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me; and to Eph 3: That he may give you Christ to dwell by faith in your hearts. This justice therefore, alien and without our acts, infused into us by grace alone, the Father drawing us within to Christ, is opposed to original sin, which is similarly alien, without our acts, by generation alone inborn and contracted to us. And so Christ expels Adam from day to day more and more, according as that faith and knowledge of Christ grows. For it is not infused all at once, but begins, progresses and is at last perfected in the end through death. The second justice is ours and proper, not that we alone work it, but that we cooperate with that first and alien one. This now is that good conversation in good works... This justice is the work of the former justice and its fruit and sequel... This justice is opposed to actual sin, our own, as to Ro 6: As you have exhibited your members to serve iniquity unto iniquity, so now exhibit your members to serve justice unto sanctification”³³.

“For there is sin forgiven through grace, and there is sin remaining in the flesh. Sin forgiven through grace is that God for Christ's sake wills not to desert us, however great sinners we are, but wills mercifully to spare us, who are lost and corrupted by sin. This sin forgiven through grace is not enough, for through infirmity we presently relapse into sins. We would therefore that not only sin were forgiven but wholly abolished. For sin, as Augustine speaks, remains in act, but passes in guilt; that is, the thing itself, which is truly sin and has been forgiven and is tolerated by God, remains in the flesh as a remnant and is not yet plainly dead, except that through Christ, as is said in Genesis, the head of the serpent is crushed, yet its tongue still flickers and its tail threatens a blow. For sin, because the grace and mercy of God reign over us, cannot damn us, cannot render God angry with us; and yet in the justified there remain relics of sin, as concupiscence and other vices, which the Prophet beholds in himself as the remaining dregs or seeds, and as above he prayed universally for remission, so here he prays for the purging or extirpation of these relics. This therefore is the second part of the petition, which, as I said, shows us a second distinction of sin, that God wills to destroy sins as to the remission of guilt and as to the very force of sin, not as to the thing or nature of sin. For the force of sin is to accuse, to damn, to bite, to wound, not to leave peace to the heart, to set before it an angry God, hell, etc. This force of sin is taken away by gratuitous mercy, and yet the true relics of this poison remain. Therefore both are true, that no Christian has sin and that every Christian has sin. Hence is born that distinction, that among Christians sin is twofold: sin forgiven and sin remaining, which is to be extirpated and washed away. Sin forgiven is that which has been crushed by confidence in mercy, that it may not damn, may not accuse; and yet on account of this flesh it still sprouts and wars in our flesh³⁴, so as to bring forth fruits like the former, that we be secure, ungrateful, ignorant of God, as we were before. These are the strivings of the relics of sin in us, which the saints also feel, but through the Holy Spirit they do not indulge them. Therefore a Christian, after he is just by faith or has received the remission of sins, ought not to be so secure as though he were plainly pure from all sins, but then at last this perpetual struggle lies upon him with the relics of sin, from which the Prophet here desires to be washed. He is indeed just and holy with an alien or extrinsic holiness, so to speak for the sake of teaching; that is, he is just by the mercy and grace of God. This mercy and grace is not something human, it is not a certain habit or quality in the heart, but it is a divine benefit, which is given to us through that knowledge of the Gospel properly so called, that we know or believe that our sin has been forgiven us through the grace and merit of Christ, and that we hope for Christ's sake in mercy and in many and great compassions, as the Prophet here says. But is not this justice an alien justice, which consists wholly in another's indulgence and is the mere gift of God who has mercy and is favourable for Christ's sake?”³⁵.

But justice is in hope, not yet in reality. “So also in this place³⁶ hope can be taken in two ways, and accordingly it begets a double sentence. The first is: We through the Spirit by faith await the hope of our justice, that is, the hoped-for justice, which is certainly to be revealed in its time. The other: We through the Spirit by faith await justice in hope and desire, that is, we have been justified, and yet we are not yet justified, because our justice still hangs in hope, Ro. 8: We are saved by hope. For as long as we live, sin still clings in our flesh, the law remains in the flesh and in the members, resisting the law of our mind and leading us captive into the service of sin. With those affections of the flesh raging and us resisting in the Spirit, there remains the place of the hoped-for justice. We have indeed begun to be justified by faith, by which we have also received the first-fruits of the Spirit, and the mortification of the flesh has begun, but we are not yet perfectly just. It remains that we be perfectly justified, and this we hope for. Thus our justice is not yet in reality, but still in hope”³⁷.

How in those who are in Christ Jesus there is no condemnation, he thus explains: “Nor do they deign to remember how often I too have brought forward that saying of Paul, that there is no condemnation, although there is something of sin, because he had premised so much about sin; but therefore there is no condemnation, not because there is no sin there, as Latomus lies, but because they are in Christ Jesus, says Paul, that is, as chicks under the hen and under the shadow of that justice they rest; or, as Ro V says more clearly, they have grace and the gift in his grace. Then they do not walk according to sin or the flesh of sin, that is, they do not consent to the sin which they truly have. For God has provided two most strong and most fortified bulwarks, that this sin be not to them unto condemnation. The first, Christ himself the propitiatory (as Ro III), that under his grace they be safe, not because they believe and have faith or the gift, but because they have it in the grace of Christ. For no one's faith would subsist, unless it rested on Christ's own justice and were preserved by his protection. For this is true faith (as I said), not that absolute, nay obsolete, quality in the soul, as they feign, but that which does not suffer itself to be torn from the grace of Christ, nor relies on anything else than what it knows, that he is in the grace of God nor can be damned, nor anyone who has thus cast himself upon him. For so great a thing is this remaining sin, so intolerable the judgment of God, that unless you set against it for yourself him whom you know to be without all sin, you cannot subsist, which true faith does. The second is, that having received the gift they do not walk according to the flesh, nor obey sin; but the former is the chief and most strong, although the other also is something, but in virtue of the former. Because God has made a covenant with those who are in Christ in this manner, that if they fight against themselves and their sin, there is no condemnation. Not therefore is there no condemnation, as Latomus raves, because they do not sin, or because there is no sin in a good work. This he feigns outside and against the open text of Paul, from his own head. But because they are (he says) in Christ Jesus and do not walk according to the flesh, speaking manifestly of mortal sin”³⁸.

The same doctrine is found in the symbolical books of the Lutherans.

Confessio Augustana (1530). Art. 2. “Likewise they teach that after the fall of Adam all men, propagated according to nature, are born with sin, that is, without the fear of God, without confidence toward God, and with concupiscence, and that this disease or vice of origin is truly sin, damning and bringing now also eternal death to those who are not reborn through baptism and the Holy Spirit”³⁹.

Art. 4. “Likewise they teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own powers, merits or works, but are justified freely for Christ's sake through faith, when they believe that they are received into grace and that sins are remitted for Christ's sake, who by his death satisfied for our sins. This faith God imputes for justice before himself, Rom. 3 et 4”⁴⁰.

Art. 6. “Likewise they teach that that faith ought to bring forth good fruits, and that it is fitting to do the good works commanded by God for the will of God, not that we trust to merit justification before God by those works. For the remission of sins and justification is apprehended by faith... ”⁴¹.

Art. 18. “Concerning free will they teach that the human will has some liberty to work civil justice and to choose things subject to reason. But it has not the power, without the Holy Spirit, of working the justice of God or spiritual justice, because the animal man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God; but this is done in hearts, when through the word the Holy Spirit is conceived... They condemn the Pelagians and others, who teach that without the Holy Spirit, by the powers of nature alone, we can love God above all things, and likewise fulfil the commandments of God as to the substance of the acts. For although nature can in some way work external works (for it can keep the hands from theft, from murder), yet it cannot work the interior motions, such as the fear of God, confidence toward God, chastity, patience, etc.”⁴².

Art. 20. “Since therefore the doctrine of faith, which ought to be the chief one in the church, has so long lain unknown, as all must needs confess, there having been the deepest silence concerning the justice of faith in the sermons, and only the doctrine of works handled in the churches, our men thus admonished the churches concerning faith: In the first place, that our works cannot reconcile God, or merit the remission of sins and grace and justification, but that we obtain this only by faith, believing that for Christ's sake we are received into grace, who alone is placed as mediator and propitiatory, through whom the Father is reconciled. Therefore he who trusts that by works he merits grace, spurns the merit of Christ and grace, and seeks without Christ a way to God by human powers, when Christ said of himself Ioh. 14, 6:

I am the way, the truth and the life... Moreover our men teach that it is necessary to do good works, not that we trust to merit grace by them, but for the will of God. By faith alone the remission of sins and grace is apprehended. And because through faith the Holy Spirit is received, the hearts are now renewed and put on new affections, so that they can bring forth good works... ”⁴³.

Formula concordiae (1577). I. Pars, Epitome. “Concerning this matter⁴⁴ this is our faith, doctrine and confession, namely that man's intellect and reason in spiritual things are wholly blind, and can understand nothing by their own powers... We believe, teach and confess also that the will of man not yet reborn is not only turned away from God, but made hostile to God, so that it only wills and desires and takes delight in those things which are evil and repugnant to the divine will... Therefore we believe that as far as a dead body is from being able to quicken itself and restore to itself bodily life, so far is man, who by reason of sin is spiritually dead, from having any faculty of recalling himself into spiritual life... ”⁴⁵.

“We believe moreover, teach and confess that that justifying faith is not a bare knowledge of the history of Christ, but a great and such a gift of God, by which we rightly acknowledge Christ our redeemer in the word of the gospel and trust in him, namely that for his obedience alone we have from grace the remission of sins, are reputed holy and just before God the Father, and obtain eternal salvation. We believe, teach and confess that the word (to justify) in the phrase of sacred Scripture in this article signifies the same as to absolve from sins, as can be understood from the saying of Solomon (Prov. 17, 15): He who justifies the impious, and he who condemns the just, both are abominable before God. Likewise (Rom. 8, 33): Who shall accuse the elect of God? It is God who justifies. And if at any time in place of the word justification the words regeneration and vivification are used (which was done in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession), they are to be taken in that former signification. For otherwise those words are to be understood of the renewal of man, which is rightly distinguished from the justification of faith. We believe, teach and confess also that, although those who truly believe in Christ and are reborn are subject to many infirmities and blemishes even to death, yet they are not to doubt either concerning the justice which is imputed to them through faith, or concerning eternal salvation, but rather they are firmly to hold that for Christ's sake, according to the promise and the immoveable word of the gospel, they have God propitious to them”⁴⁶.

“That these controversies⁴⁷ may be solidly and rightly explained and decided, this is our faith, doctrine and confession: I. That good works most certainly and undoubtedly follow true faith (provided it be not a dead but a living faith) as the fruits of a good tree. II. We believe also, teach and confess that good works are to be wholly excluded, not only when the justification of faith is at issue, but also when our eternal salvation is disputed... VIII. But this liberty of the spirit in the elect children of God we acknowledge to be not perfect, but still burdened with manifold infirmity, as the divine Paul complains of this matter concerning his own person (Rom. 7, 14-25. Gal. 5, 17). IX. Yet the Lord does not impute that infirmity to his elect, and that for the sake of Christ the mediator. For thus it is written (Rom. 8, 1): There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. X. We believe moreover, teach and confess that faith and salvation are preserved or retained in us not by works, but only by the Spirit of God and by faith (by which namely salvation is guarded), but that good works are testimonies that the Holy Spirit is present and dwells in us”⁴⁸. A similar doctrine of Calvin is to be seen in his Catechism of the church of Geneva (1545)⁴⁹, and of the Zwinglians in the later Helvetic Confession (1562)⁵⁰.

In the bull “Exsurge Domine” (15 June 1520) Leo X condemned the errors of Luther⁵¹, among which are several also that pertain to the matter of grace. Thus the doctrine which says that the concupiscence which remains after baptism is sin (art. 2); the doctrine of the faith required and sufficient for the remission of sins (art. 10-12. 15); that the just man sins in every work (art. 31); that a good work, however well done, is a venial sin (art. 32); that no man is certain that he does not always sin mortally (art. 35); that free will after sin is a thing of mere title (art. 36).

But above all the Council of Trent opposed the true catholic doctrine to the new heresy. In session 5 (17 June 1546), by the decree on original sin, it had condemned the opinion which denies that through the grace of Christ, which is conferred in Baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted, or asserts that not all of that is taken away which has the true and proper character of sin, but says only that it is bruised or not imputed. Concupiscence indeed remains after baptism, but it is not therefore called sin, as though it were truly and properly sin in the reborn, but because it is from sin and inclines to sin⁵².

Then, in the sixth session (13 Jan. 1547), by the decree on justification “it intends to set forth to all the faithful of Christ the true and sound doctrine of justification itself, which Christ Jesus, the sun of justice, the author and finisher of our faith, taught, which the apostles handed down and the catholic Church, the Holy Spirit suggesting it, has perpetually retained, most strictly forbidding that anyone hereafter dare to believe, preach or teach otherwise than is established and declared by the present decree”. The decree contains 16 chapters, in which the catholic doctrine is set forth, and 33 canons, in which false doctrines are rejected⁵³.

Cap. 1-3 show that justification is a mere work of grace from the merits of Christ the Redeemer. Cap. 1: After the sin of Adam neither the Gentiles by the force of nature, nor the Jews by the letter of the Law of Moses could be freed or rise again, although free will was by no means extinguished. Cap. 2: But God took pity on the human race and sent his Son to redeem the Jews and the Gentiles. Cap. 3: But the merits of the passion of Christ must be communicated to men: men must be reborn in Christ; by this rebirth in Christ grace is given them, by which they are made just.

Cap. 4-9 treat of the first justification, that is, of the justification of the man who is still in original sin. Cap. 4: Briefly this justification is described as a translation from that state in which man is born a son of the first Adam into the state of grace and of adoption of sons. This translation, after the Gospel has been promulgated, cannot take place without the laver of regeneration or the desire of it. Cap. 5: The adult ought to prepare himself for this justification. He takes his beginning from the prevenient grace of God, by which, no merits of theirs existing, they are called; but man ought freely to assent to this grace and to cooperate with it. Cap. 6: this manner of preparation is described more accurately. Cap. 7 teaches what justification itself is, namely, not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inner man through the voluntary receiving of grace and of the gifts; they are not only reputed just, but are truly named and are just. Moreover the causes of this justification are enumerated. Cap. 8 explains how the words of St Paul are to be understood, that we are justified by faith and gratis; by faith, because faith is the beginning, foundation and root of all justification; gratis, because none of the things that precede justification merits the grace of justification itself. Cap. 9 rejects the vain confidence of the heretics. To him who rests in this confidence alone, sins are not remitted; nor ought those who are truly justified to establish with themselves without all doubt that they are justified; much less is justification perfected by this faith alone.

Cap. 10-13 treat of the second justification, or of the preservation and development of the first justification. Cap. 10: The just grow in the justice itself received, by faith cooperating with good works, and are more justified. Cap. 11: The observance of the commandments is not impossible for the justified; and it is altogether necessary for obtaining the inheritance. Whence the just man in no way sins in every good work, not even when he works with a view to eternal reward. Cap. 12: But although the just man can observe the commandments, he can also sin; nor, if he has sinned, ought he to promise himself a certain repentance. Hence the rash presumption of predestination is to be avoided. Cap. 13: The same holds of the gift of perseverance. For they are reborn not unto glory but unto the hope of glory, and the struggle with the flesh, with the world, with the devil remains to them.

Cap. 14-15 treat of the third justification, or of the justification of those who have lost grace. Cap. 14: Those who through sin have fallen from the grace of justification can be justified again. Briefly the manner of this justification is described and it is indicated how it differs from the first justification. Cap. 15: The grace of justification is lost not by unbelief alone, but by every mortal sin; yet faith is not always lost together with grace.

Cap. 16: it treats of the fruit of justification, that is, of the merit of good works, and of the nature of merit itself.

There follow 33 canons, in which the errors opposed to this doctrine are rejected.