The Real Reasons for Combating God's Sole Efficacy in Conversion.

The Real Reasons for Combating God's Sole Efficacy in Conversion.

of communicated powers of grace not only expressly teach that conversion and salvation do not depend solely on God's grace,'*° but also declare the teaching of sola gratia to be a fatal error. 95 An explicit negation of the powers of grace is also present when, with Dieckhoff, the decision for conversion is ascribed to the "freedom" left to man by the divine effect of grace. '?) The decision is thus transferred to an area that is outside the divine effect of grace. Finally, no grace forces can also be meant because a force is meant that decides for or against grace. A force of grace is never ina position to decide for or against grace. To the synergistic defense belongs also the assertion that the "self- determination," the "right conduct," "the refraining

Conversion and Election, p. 36 ff.] L. u. W. 1887, p. 161 ff.

conversion and salvation are also dependent on man and not only on God.

taking of salvation, obedience in faith, conversion... Himself, then "Predestinatianism" (meaning Calvinism) "would be inevitable". "Kirchenzeitung" 1885, p. 76: "We consider it un-Christian and pagan to say that the real attainment of the salvation that is perfectly prepared and seriously determined by God for all human beings does not depend in any way on man's attitude towards it, but in every respect solely on God.

from wanton resistance," etc., does not include merit and therefore leaves sola gratia untouched. In its '*°?) report on the doctrinal position of the Wisconsin Synod, the Rostock faculty even increased this argument: "You do nothing at all if you only do not resist God. This defense alone will destroy your own house. The argument is intended to demonstrate that God does not act "arbitrarily" when some of the hearers of the Word are converted and others are not. If now the omission of rebellion is "nothing at all", God, in considering the omission of rebellion on the part of those who are converted, has looked at "nothing", and God would still be standing there as a God of "arbitrariness". Therefore the Rostock faculty deceived with the "nothing" only themselves and others. With the "nothing" it did not mean nothing, but everything: man does everything that is crucial for conversion. This is how the friends of the Rostock report interpreted "nothing" when they explained that, "correctly understood", "nothing" (the omission of the willful reluctance on the part of man) is what counts for "everything".!3°4) Luther's words against Erasmus belong here: "Admittedly, they ascribe to free will only an extremely low (quam minimum), but they nevertheless teach that through this very low thing we attain justice and grace.!>> The real reasons for fighting against God's sole effectiveness in conversion. AN We have convinced ourselves of the twofold fact: 1. that the denial of God's sole effectiveness in conversion has no basis in Scripture; 2. that the objections raised against God's sole effectiveness do not stand up to logic. Thus the question suggests itself what the reason for such widespread synergism is. We can clearly see

Dieckhoff, Schulze, Nésgen.

(namely with regard to the omission of wanton reluctance) "certainly depends on something, correctly understood, everything: on it depends his conversion and salvation.

point in the preface to L. u. W. 1883, p. 37 ff. that there is a general reason and a special reason. The general reason is in the words of Apology * (134, § 144 [Trigl. 197, Apol., II, 144]), which we will place here again: Haec opinio legis (némlich opera mereri remissionem peccatorum) haeret naturaliter in animis hominum neque excuti potest, nisi quum divinitus docemur. [This opinion of the Law [that works merit remission of sins] inheres by nature in men’s minds; neither can it be expelled, unless when we are divinely taught’’] It is natural for the human heart to think of the return to God by way of the Law, that is, human action. Just as the natural man knows that through his evil deeds and the guilt contracted by them, he has erected a dividing wall between himself and God, he also thinks that the removal of this dividing wall is somehow in the line of improving his life and his own actions. '°® The return to God without any performance on his part, only through faith in God already gracious through Christ's vicarious satisfaction, is completely inconceivable to man according to his natural nature, ov dwatat yv@vat. It is precisely the serious Christians who have a living experience of this. They can only hold fast to the " plea," etc., by continuing to fight hard against the opinio legis that still lives in their flesh. Well known are the recurring complaints of Luther that he finds it so difficult to get rid of the idea of Christ as a judge or representative of the law of God. Luther thinks that he has a harder fight in this respect than other Christians because he grew up in the Papacy, and he congratulates his students on being spared the Papist school.!° But then Luther also states again and again that the opinio legis is only the carnal religion inherent in man. "Reason remains in the knowledge of God as it comes from the law." "The evangelical knowledge of God does not grow in our garden, reason does not know a drop of it; it must be proclaimed from above and formed in the heart. '>®) Thus we need not be greatly surprised at the so general appearance of synergism. Synergism is nothing more and nothing less than an attempt to unite with Christianity the opinio legis, which is innate in man and over which even Christians, according to their flesh, are not yet completely above.

179, Apol., IT, 91; 321, Apol, XV [VII], 22-24]

The synergistic arguments against God's sole efficacy, that faith and conversion are demanded of man, that conversion necessarily has a "moral" character, that "self-determination" implies, is conditioned by "right behavior" against grace — all these arguments are already based on the premise that the return to God is in the field of law, human achievement, life improvement, works. It is not by chance that the fighters against sola gratia in conversion are usually also the fighters against ee eT a or. The situation is this: As long as one does not accept the truth of Scripture that God, for Christ's sake, is already completely merciful to all people, and the Gospel is the proclamation of this fact, one thinks that man’s return to God is still somehow conditioned by human achievement, and precisely also by this achievement that man is active for the achievement of faith by the right use of "the freedom left to him", by "refraining from wanton resistance", by "right behavior against grace" etc.

reconciliation is held, there is simply no room for synergism. Man's return to God can then consist only in the fact that God, who is already perfectly gracious, gives faith in the gospel in man through the gospel as a pure gift of grace bpiv éyapio8n... TO sic adtOv miotEvet [Unto you it is given (éyapic8n)... to believe on Him’], Phil. 1:29. There is, however, another particular reason () for the synergistic assumption that conversion does not depend solely on God's grace, but decisively on human actions and behavior. And this reason explains to us the fact that even those people who we do not dare to deny the Christian faith have excluded synergism from their teaching system.

grace, "in consideration of faith" was taken as synonymous with "in consideration of human behavior", Walther declared in a letter to E. A. Brauer that this was "a part of that Gospel which does not want to let us be saved by grace". (Lebensbild des Pastor E. A. Brauer. St. L. 1898, p. 122)

"theory"? In discussing the doctrine of conversion in depth, we come across the crux theologorum, namely, the question why, by the general grace of God, not all men are converted and saved. While Luther certainly wanted to postpone the answer to this question to eternal life (the /umen gloriae) and already described the attempt to solve this difficulty as folly and diabolical empton VReE ner oe rare ener. According to his own statement, he was troubled by the question "why Saul is rejected, David is accepted". And because he had no desire for Calvin's answer, that is, for the denial of the gratia universalis, he chose the other false key that was presented to him, the denial of the sola gratia, () by making the human will (voluntas non repugnans or acultas applicandi se ad gratiam), alongside the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, a contributory cause of conversion (tres causae conversionis). He says this in the often trembling words (Loci, ed. Detzer I, 74): "Since the promise of the Gospel is universal, and since there are no contradictory wills in God, it is necessary that there be in us a cause of the difference between why Saul is rejected and why David is accepted, that is, there must be a different behavior (actio) in the two. In other words, (of "different behavior"), because here too, as elsewhere, he was plagued by his "philosophy" or rationalism. In these ways of Melanchthon also walk all the newer synergists. They believe that they are guilty of this cleverness beyond God's Word, according to Melanchthon's ways, of "theology".!°°)

between the tasks of the Confessions and the tasks of "theology", e.g. Theol. d. F. C. I, 158 f. Likewise with Thomasius, Das Bekenntnis der ev.-luth. K. in d. Konsequenz s. Prinzips, p. 144 f.; Dogmengesch.2 I, 2, p. 520: "The confession has only the task of stating the facts of the Christian-church consciousness; the mediation is the task of theology. If we do not want to be wise beyond the Holy Scriptures, we must record the following statements: 1) We know exactly the reason for conversion: it is God's work of grace alone.!3°?) 2) We also know exactly the reason for non-conversion: it is man's reluctance and guilt alone. °° 3) But because the grace of God is general and serious, and all men are in the same total ruin, it remains a mystery in this life why some are converted and others are not. Every solution to this mystery brings us into conflict with Scripture. The mystery would be solved if we were to say that conversion does not depend solely on God's grace but also on the right behavior of man, or, which is the same thing, if we were to place next to God's grace as the reason or "explanatory reason" for conversion the human facultas applicandi se ad gratiam, the omission of wanton resistance, etc. But this solution contradicts the statements of Scripture, which so clearly and powerfully ascribe the emergence of faith to God's effect of grace and omnipotence, and not only deny man every inclination to the Gospel, but also attribute enmity of him against it. The mystery would also be solved if we were to teach the gratia particularis as the reason for not converting with Calvin. But this solution contradicts the statements of Scripture, which so clearly and powerfully teach the gratia universalis, seria et efficax, and this applies especially to those who are actually not converted and are lost. °°) Thus silence, that is, the recognition of a mystery that is indissoluble in this life, is the right theology willed by God. This is the position of Luther, as has already been explained in detail. '*°° This is also the position of the Formula of Concord, as it explains it in detail in its eleventh article (pp. 716, 57-64) [Trigl. 1081, SD., XI, 57—64]. Like Luther, the Formula of Concord rejects the substructure of synergism,

universalis, seria et efficax, p. 21 ff.

et efficax, pp. 17 ff.

in the difference from Calvin's doctrine, pp. 46 ff namely, Melanchthon's different behavior and unequal guilt, and teaches that in comparing the saved with those who go to perdition ("Wwe held against them"), the former are "in equal guilt" and also "behave evil against God's word" (nos cum illis collati et quam simillimi illis deprehensi). Consequently, the Formula of Concord also instructs us to acknowledge the fact that "one is hardened, blinded, given in the wrong sense, and another, though in the same guilt, is converted", a mystery that is insoluble in this life, because the revelation of the Scriptures does not lead us beyond Hos. 13:9: "Israel, that thou shouldest perish, the guilt is thine; but that thou shouldest be helped, that is pure my grace. "But what in this Disputation wants to go too high and out of these limits" (extra hos limites, namely about the sola culpa for the lost and about the sola gratia for the saved), "we should put our finger on Paulo's mouth, remember and say: Who are you, man, who want to be right with God? This is also the position of 16th century Lutheran theologians before and at the time of the Formula of Concord.!3° Among the Lutheran

or this gift of faith is not given by God to all, since he calls everyone to himself, and calls earnestly after his infinite goodness: 'Come to the wedding feast, all is ready’, that is a closed mystery, known only to God, not to be found out by any human reason, to be regarded and worshipped with timidity, as it is written: Oh, what depth of riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments and His ways unfathomable! Rom. 11 And Christ thanks God the Father for hiding these things from the wise and prudent and revealing them to babes. Matt. 11: "Meanwhile, consciences that are challenged should not be offended by this hidden way of the divine will, but should look at the will of God revealed in Christ, which calls all sinners to Himself. (See Léscher's Hist. mot. II, p. 288.) — Joachim Morlin: "It has been revealed to us that God wants to make saved only those who believe in Christ, and that unbelief is out of us. But the judgments of God are hidden, why he converts Paul, why Caiaphas does not convert him, why he accepts the fallen Peter again, why he leaves Judas to despair. (At Schliisselburg, Catalogus Haereticorum, V, p. 228.) — Chemnitz: "How is it then that Judas is not exempted, that he does not receive forgiveness of sin, since he repented of what he had done? And what is lacking in his repentance and contrition, that he cannot obtain mercy? He had no faith in Christ, does not believe that God is merciful and forgives sin, and this does him harm; for where there is no faith, there is neither the grace of God nor the forgiveness theologians of the 17th century, a change was in the offing. (*) Whereas the theologians of the 16th century, when comparing the saved with the lost, i.e., of sin. Now our Catechism, in the third article of our Christian faith, says that man cannot believe in Jesus Christ or come to it by his own reason or strength, but the Holy Spirit must bring him to such faith, for faith is a gift of God. Then we must return with unanswered questions and say (Rom. 11) O what a depth of riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments and His ways unfathomable! We cannot and should not investigate this and delve too deeply into such thoughts, but should use this so that we do not deliberately enter into sin and try to tempt God, so that God does not pull his hand away from us and make us sink; for where this happens, we always fall from one sin into another and gradually slide so deeply into sin that afterward there is no return, and we cannot again reach for the same position as was the case with Judah. (Passionspredigten IV, p. 17 f.) — Apology of the Book of Concord (Chemnitz, Selnecker, Kirchner [CPH 2018, p. 423]): "The Christian Book of Concord does not say that God does not reject some, and thus also does not contradict Luther’s saying in his Bondage of the Will against Erasmus that it is the highest rung of faith to believe that God is most kind even though He saves so few. But it does not say that God is the effective cause of this rejection or condemnation, which is the end result of our opponents’ doctrine. When it comes to this disputation, all people ought first to put their hands over their mouths and say with the apostle Paul: (Rom. 11:20): ‘Propter incredulitatem defracti sunt’ [They were broken off because of their unbelief’] and Rom. 6:23 The wages of sin is death; secondly, when the question is asked why God the Lord should not convert all men (that he could do so), convert and make them believe through his Holy Spirit, etc., the apostle should also speak to him: Quam incomprehensibilia sunt iudicia eius et impervestigabiles viae eius! [How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out.’] But by no means should ascribe to God the Lord Himself the willing and real cause of the rejection or damnation of the impenitent. But should they press upon us and say: Because you confess the election of the elect, you must also confess the other thing, namely, that in God Himself is a cause of rejection from eternity, even apart from sin, etc, we say that we do not at all consider to make God the causer of rejection (which is actually not in God but in sin) and to really attribute to him the cause of the damnation of the ungodly, but we want to stick to the little saying of the prophet Hosea, chapter 13, since God says O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thine help’. They also do not want to investigate the dear God, as Luthero heard above, as long as he is hidden and has not revealed himself. For it is too high for us and we cannot understand it; the more we get involved in this, the further we get from the dear God and the more we when asking why some are converted and others are not, come clean from the start and declare in no uncertain terms that at this point there is a mystery that cannot be solved in this life, the later theologians begin to argue in the direction of the attempted explanations. This happens namely in connection with the introduction of the formula intuitu fidei into the doctrine of the choice of grace. But nevertheless doubt His most gracious will toward us. In such a way the Book of Concord is not denied that God does not work in the same way in all men; for find much at all times which he has not called by his public preaching. But that we should therefore conclude with the opposite, that he was a real cause of the rejection of such people, and that he decided it for himself out of mere advice that he would reject them and cast them out forever, even outside sin, should never be discussed with us. For it is enough that when we come to this depth of the 'mystery' of God, we speak to the Apostle (Rom. 11): "His judgments are unsearchable' and (1 Cor. 15): "We give thanks to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. What is above will be revealed to us by our own Savior Christ in eternal life itself." (Apology of the Formula of Concord. Dresden 1584, col. 206 f. [CPH 2018, p. 423-424]) — Selnecker: "Although God could make willing beings out of all who do not want, He does not do so; and why He does not do so, He has His most just and wise reasons, which it is not our business to investigate. Rather, we owe it to ourselves to give thanks with all our hearts that he has called us to the communion of eternal life by preaching the Gospel and has enlightened our hearts by faith. (In Omnes Epp. D. Pauli Acts Commentary. Leipzig 1595, col. 213.) - Timotheus Kirchner: "Since faith in Christ is a special gift of God, why does he not give it to all? Answer: We should save discussion of this question for eternal life, and let it suffice that God does not want us to investigate His secret judgments (Rom. 11): ‘O what a depth of riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments!" (Enchiridion, p. 143.) — And now from that time some judgments on Melanchthon's statement.. And what do you think of the 4 paragraphs that were brought in after Luther's death? It is written there: "It must be a necessary cause of the difference in us why a Saul is rejected and a David is accepted." (Imprint of the protocol in Lehre und Wehre, Jahrg. 28, p. 446.) — Konrad Schliisselburg lists under 8 numbers "praecipuos Synergistarum errores" ("main errors of Synergists"]. No. 2 reads: In nobis esse causam, cur alii assentiantur promissioni gratiae, alii non assentiantur. [In us is the reason why some agree to the promise of grace, and others do not.] (Catalogus V, p. 16. 17.) — [Leonhard] Hutter also resolutely dissociates himself from Melanchthon's statement, expressing it as a synergistic error. (Explicatio F. C., p. 200. 201.) 489] There remains an essential difference between theologians like Gerhard, Quenstedt, Calov, Joh. Adam Osiander and others, and the more recent Lutherans. While nothing is more familiar to the latter than the statement that in the "different behavior" of man, in his self-determination for or against grace, the explanation is given why some are converted and others are not, former theologians, like those mentioned above, when they reach the decisive point, give up their attempts to explain. They do not say that we have to look for the reason why some people are converted while others remain unconverted in their different behavior against grace, but rather admonish them to let the two truths revealed in Scripture remain: those who are converted and become saved owe this solely to the grace of God; those who remain unconverted and are lost must put this on their own account of guilt. '°°% It is precisely the main arguments with which the newer Lutherans want to ensure that man has a share in the achievement of his conversion (the proof of the imperative and conditional clauses, the conclusion from unwillingness to willing, the assumption of a neutral state, the threat of forced conversion and gratia irresistibilis) that they dismiss as factually and logically incorrect.

salvantur, agnoscendum est solius divinae gratiae opus esse; quod multi non convertuntur et pereunt, agnoscendum est ipsorum pereuntium culpa unice fieri, in qua pia simplicitate mens Christiana secure acquiescere posset, si vel maxime omnibus difficultatibus, praesertim tis, quae circa individua hominum convertendorum moventur, sese non possit expedire. [Google] Also Quenstedt IT, 59: Quod dicitur causam, quod quidam credunt, non esse in hominibus, sed in Deo fidem pro beneplacito suo iis largiente, id verbo est consentaneum Eph. 2:8; Phil. 2:13. Quod vero infertur (the conclusion is made) causam, scil, cur alii in incredulitate,perseverent, similiter in Deo esse, id sicut S. Scripturae, 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Petr. 3:9, contrarium, ita nec ex antecedente sequitur. [Google] — P. Piscator (Commentary in F. C.., p. 577; in Baier IIL, 584): "But that some may give and say such childish and even drunken things: If it is solely due to God's grace and election and not also partly to man's will, or if it is solely due to God that man becomes a believer and accepts the salvation of the Word, and not to man's free arbitrariness, then God is a respecter of the person, cum non aequalibus aequalia dividat, because he does not give faith to one and the other. These dolts deserve a sound thrashing that they give our Lord God the credit of inequity, because his incomprehensible judgments do not rhyme with their foolish reason. They do this especially in the fight against the theologians of Helmstedt and Musaeus. '*°?) Musaeus himself gives a correct account of the Lutheran doctrine despite his own deviation from it. To the reproach of the Reformed theologian Wendelin that the Lutherans put the cause of the difference (causam discretionis), why some people are converted while others are not, into the human being, he answers: "Wendelin does not quite honestly present the opinion of "our side" (the Lutherans) "and expresses it ambiguously with diligence, so that he could criticize it. First of all, we are in the habit of not saying that the cause of the difference between why some convert and those who are not converted lies solely in man, but all say with one mouth (uno ore dicunt omnes) that the cause of why those who are converted lies not in man but solely in God, but the cause of why those who persist in godlessness are not converted lies not with God but solely in man.!37° In this way, both Calvinism and Synergism are rejected as an answer to the question why, with the general grace of God and the same total destruction of man, not all men are converted and saved, and at this point the existence of a mystery that cannot be resolved in this life is recognized. In the 19th century only individual theologians in Germany, like Guericke, acknowledged the position of the Formula of Concord. '°’ In particular, however, this has been done in America [4] by the

the section: "Die Beurteilung der alten Dogmatiker", p. 37 ff. [English translation: Conversion and Election, "The Position of the Old Dogmaticians", p. 51 ff.]

Lutheran] declare emphatically: Whoever is lost is rejected solely through his own fault, as a sinner.' But while the Lutheran Church in modest resignation stops at this sentence, the Reformed Church in however consistent argumentation of understanding—indeed, in unbending, rigid consistency of understanding that does not bend even before the word of God—extends the above conclusion also to the unsaved... The Lutheran Church recognizes from this that it is not for mortals to want to penetrate this mystery of divine righteousness, and in humble submission refrains from answering a question which, as it does not conceal, could only be answered blasphemously by the weak mortal. The saved, she teaches, is saved by God's grace in Christ alone, without any merit of his own; Missouri Synod and the synods associated with it, both toward Synergism and Calvinism.!3) the wretched is wretched through his own fault, because he continually resists divine grace. Why the resistance of the former to divine grace is finally broken, but that of the latter is not, is not the merit of the former, but the fault of the latter; the underlying inner disposition of man, however, if it is good, comes only from God, but if itis evil, not from God. But man with his stupid mind, clouded by sin, is not able to explore this deepest depth of the divine workshop, and it is greater wisdom to acknowledge the divine mystery than to solve it blasphemously."

Lutheran Church the right to exist, provided that it confesses in the Formula of Concord both the universalis gratis and the sola gratia. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology 448; Hodge, Systematic Theology Il, 325. After the events of the German modern Lutherans (Kahnis, Luthardt, Dieckhoff), American synergism fought just as vehemently against the position of the Formula of Concord. "Theol. Monatshefte" 1872, p. 80: "That of two people who hear the Gospel, in one case reluctance and death is taken away, but not in the other,... that has its reason in the free self-decision of man. "Zeitblatter" 1911, p. 526: "So the different work of the converting and saving grace is probably explained by the different behavior of people towards it. "The first reason why this is not a Lutheran doctrine, but one that the Lutheran Church has always rejected in the most decisive way, is that this destroys the inexplicable mystery why certain people come to faith and become saved, while others do not come to faith and are lost, although both are equally powerless and guilty when this mystery is explained according to the thoughts of their reason. The different behavior and the different guilt and the same bad behavior and the same guilt also remained the "core question" in the controversy about the doctrines of Conversion and the Election of grace that has been going on since 1880. The former was claimed by the synods of Iowa, Ohio, etc., the latter by the synod of Missouri and the synods associated with it. Cf. the presentation in " Zur Einigung", Chapter III. V [pp. 14 ff. & 22 ff.; English translation: Conversion and Election, pp. 20 ff. & 31 ff.]. Furthermore: Proceedings of the 32nd Convention of the Synods of Wisconsin and Minnesota 1882, pp. 31 ff. After rejecting Calvinism and synergism, it says there: "It remains a mystery why some are converted while others remain unconverted. Only this must be firmly established, that just as little as the remaining of some in the unconverted state is based on God's purpose, so is the conversion of others founded in a diversity of resistance.... The Formula of Concord knows nothing of a solution of the mystery here by a distinction between natural and willful Our theological colleges have the task of convincing students of three things in particular: 1. that the position of the Formula of Concord is the only one in accordance with Scripture; 2. that the accusation of lack of scientific insight which is made against the position of the Formula of Concord comes from a theological dilettantism which pretends to have knowledge which it does not have; 3. that the position of the Formula of Concord has the consensus of all Christians. This is even the case with Christian teachers who, like Melanchthon, allow their flesh so much room in themselves that they advocate synergism as a theory in word and writing. Luther has already pointed this out in De servo arbitrio. 3" The harmfulness of synergism. On the basis of the foregoing, the harmfulness of synergism can be summarized as follows: 1. synergism knows no gospel and no grace in the Christian sense. A Gospel that promises reluctance, but says where it addresses the mysteries we are not to brood over: ‘One is blinded, given in the wrong sense, and another, equally guilty, is converted.’ [Trigl. 1081, F. C., Sol. Decl., XI, 57]

ostendere potestis unum, qui tantillum robur animi vel affectus habuerit, ut in nomine et virtute liberi arbitrii unum obolum contemnere, uno bolo carere, unum verbum vel signum iniuriae ferre potuerit (nam de contemptu opum, vitae, famae nihil dicam), iterum palmam habete et sub hastam libenter ibimus. Atque id ipsum vos, qui tanta bucca verborum vim liberi arbitrii iactatis, nobis exhibere debetis, aut iterum de lana caprina videbimini statuere, aut ut ille in vacuo theatro ludos spectare. Ego vero contrarium vobis facile ostendam, quod viri sancti, quales iactatis, quoties ad Deum oraturi vel acturi accedunt, quam penitus obliti incedant liberi arbitrii sui, desperantes de semet ipsis, ac nihil nisi solam et puram gratiam longe alia meritis sibi invocantes, qualis saepe Augustinus, qualis Bernardus, cum moriturus diceret: Perdidi tempus meum, quia perdite vixi. Non video hic allegari vim aliquam, quae ad gratiam sese appet, sed accusari omnem vim, quod non nisi aversa fuerit. Quanquam illi ipsi sancti aliquando inter disputandum aliter de libero arbitrio locuti sunt, sicut video omnibus accidisse ut alii sint, dum verbis aut disputationibus intenti sunt, et alii, dum affectibus et operibus; illic dicunt aliter quam affecti fuerunt ante, hic aliter afficiuntur quam dixerunt ante. Ex affectu vero potius, quam ex sermone metiendi sunt homines, tam pii quam impii. [Google] (St L. XVIII, 1729 f.) - Cf. Zur Einigung, Chapter VII: "The Agreement of All Christians to the Presentation of the Formula of Concord", pp. 32 ff. [English translation: Conversion and Election, p. 45 ff.; text