From the Diet of Worms to the Augsburg Confession - James Aitken Wylie

civil justice, and the sphere of holiness. Man can
do many things, they said. He can love his
children, his neighbors, his country; he can study
an art, practice a profession, or guide the State; he
can bless society by his virtues and talents, or
afflict it by his vices and crimes; but those actions
only are righteous in the sight of God which spring
from a gracious principle, implanted by the Holy
Spirit, and which are directed to a heavenly end. To
love God, and love and labor for man for God's
sake, is a power, they taught, which fallen man
does not possess, and which must be given him
from above; according to the saying of Ambrose,
that "Faith is the mother of good desires and holy
actions"–words which are but the echo of those of
a greater Teacher, "Without me ye can do nothing."
In conclusion, the Protestants returned in their
Confession to their grand cardinal doctrine,
salvation by grace. They especially attacked the
mass, on which Rome had suspended the salvation
of the world, making the priest, and not Christ, the
savior of men; the sacrifice on the altar, and not the
sacrifice on the cross, the real propitiation; thus
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