Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

Introductory Essay.
Ivii
differ, one only in indifference. The Lutheran
and the Catholic belief are as like two different
religions as any can be, wherein the belief as to
the Adorable Trinity and the Incarnation is the
same. The whole doctrine of the application
of the merits of CHRIST to fallen man, and the
condition of man in consequence of the fall, is
radically different. The oft-times repeated
doctrine of Luther was, that man was not only,
as our Article says,
"
far gone from original
righteousness," but that his whole being was
sin;* that to recover him from this state,
" The HOLY SPIRIT worketh faith, where and
when GOD wills ;"f
that
"
the cause of sin is
the will of the evil, viz., the devil and the
ungodly, which, GOD not helping them [the
Augsburg Confession does not say they
refusing the grace of GOD, but 6 GOD not
helping them ] turns itself away from GOD ;"|
the faith, whereby man is restored, is, not a
loving faith which looks out of itself to its
Redeemer and its GOD, but a faith which looks
into itself, a faith in its own assurance. The
Confession of Augsburg again and again
defines justifying faith to be, in fact, a faith
which believes the man s self to be justified.
The contrast does not relate to that common
* See Qnenstedt, Theol. Did-Polem. ii. pp. 134-5 Witt.
+ Conf. Aug., Art. v. ae min. Eccl.
Ib. Art. xix.