d the Spirit, he never truly had the Spirit and faith. I have seen and
heard of many men so insane, and I fear that such a devil is still
remaining in some. If, therefore, I say, such persons would hereafter
also arise, it is necessary to know and teach that if saints who still
have and feel original sin, and also daily repent and strive with it,
fall in some way into manifest sins, as David into adultery, murder, and
blasphemy, they cast out faith and the Holy Ghost. For the Holy Ghost
does not permit sin to have dominion, to gain the upper hand so as to be
completed, but represses and restrains it so that it must not do what it
wishes. But if it do what it wishes, the Holy Ghost and faith are not
there present. For St. John says (1. Ep. 3, 9): 'Whosoever is born of
God doth not commit sin, . . . and he cannot sin.' And yet that is also
the truth which the same St. John says (1. Ep. 1, 8): 'If we say that we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.'" (Part
III, Art. 3, Sec.Sec. 42-45; p. 329.) The Lutheran Church has received this
statement of Luther into her confessional writings. This is the Luther
of whom a modern Catholic critic says: "This thought of the
all-forgiving nature of faith so dominated his mind that it excluded the
notion of contrition, penance, good works, or effort on the part of the
believer, and thus his teaching destroyed root and branch the whole idea
of human culpability and responsibility for the breaking of the
Commandments."

It is amazing boldness in Catholics to prefer this charge against
Luther, when they themselves teach a worse doctrine than they impute to
Luther. The Council of Trent in its Sixth Session, Canon 15, also in its
Sixteenth Session, Canon 15, Coster in his Enchiridion, in the chapter
on Faith, p. 178, Bellarminus on Justification, chapter 15, declare it
to be Catholic teaching that the believer cannot lose his faith by any,
even the worst, sin he may commit. They speak of believing fornicators,
believing adulterers, believing thieves, believing misers, believing
drunkards, believing slanderers, etc. The very teaching which Catholics
falsely ascribe to Luther is an accepted dogma of their own Church.
Their charge against Luther is, at best, the trick of crying, "Hold
thief!" to divert attention from themselves.

But did not Luther in the plainest terms advise his friends Weller and
Melanchthon to practise immoralities as a means for overcoming their
des