bolt hurls both [those selling and those buying works] on one heap, and says: Repent! Matt.3, 2.Now, the former [the poor wretches] imagine: Why, we have repented! The latter [the rest] say: We need no repentance.John says: Repent ye, both of you, for ye are false penitents; so are these [the rest]
false saints [or hypocrites], and all of you on either side need the forgiveness of sins, because neither of you know what true sin is not to say anything about your duty to repent of it and shun it.For no one of you is good; you are full of unbelief, stupidity, and ignorance of God and God's will.For here He is present of whose fulness have all we received, and grace for grace, John 1, 16, and without Him no man can be just before God.Therefore, if you wish to repent, repent aright- your penance will not accomplish anything [is nothing].And you hypocrites, who do not need repentance, you serpents' brood, who has assured you that you will escape the wrath to come? etc.Matt.3, 7; Luke 3, 7.
In the same way Paul also preaches, Rom.3, 10-12: There is none righteous, there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God, there is none that doeth good, no not one; they are all gone out of the way; they are together become unprofitable.And Acts 17, 30: God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent."All men," he says; no one excepted who is a man.This repentance teaches us to discern sin, namely, that we are altogether lost, and that there is nothing good in us from head to foot [both within and without], and that we must absolutely become new and other men.
This repentance is not piecemeal [partial] and beggarly [fragmentary], like that which does penance for actual sins, nor is it uncertain like that.For it does not debate what is or is not sin, but hurls everything on a heap, and says: All in us is nothing but sin [affirms that, with respect to us, all is simply sin (and there is nothing in us that is not sin and guilt)].What is the use of [For why do we wish]
investigating, dividing, or distinguishing a long time? For this reason, too, this contrition is not [doubtful or]
uncertain.For there is nothing left with which we can think of any good thing to pay for sin, but there is only a sure despairing concerning all that we are, think, speak, or do [all hope must be cast aside in respect of everything], etc.
In like manner confession, too, cannot be false, uncertain, or piecemeal [mutilated or fragmentary].For he who confesses that all in him is nothing but sin comprehends all sins excludes none, forgets none.Neither can the satisfaction be uncertain, because it is not our uncertain, sinful work, but it is the suffering and blood of the [spotless and] innocent Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.
Of this repentance John preaches, and afterwards Christ in the Gospel, and we also.By this [preaching of] repentance we dash to the ground the Pope and everything that is built upon our good works.For all is built upon a rotten and vain foundation, which is called a good work or law, even though no good work is there, but only wicked works, and no one does the Law (as Christ, John 7, 19, says), but all transgress it.
Therefore the building [that is raised upon it] is nothing but falsehood and hypocrisy, even [in the part] where it is most holy and beautiful.
And in Christians this repentance continues until death, because, through the entire life it contends with sin remaining in the flesh, as Paul, Rom.7, 14-25, [shows]
testifies that he wars with the law in his members, etc.; and that, not by his own powers, but by the gift of the Holy Ghost that follows the remission of sins.This gift daily cleanses and sweeps out the remaining sins, and works so as to render man truly pure and holy.
The Pope, the theologians, the jurists, and every other man know nothing of this [from their own reason], but it is a doctrine from heaven, revealed through the Gospel, and must suffer to be called heresy by the godless saints [or hypocrites].
On the other hand, if certain sectarists would arise, some of whom are perhaps already extant, and in the time of the insurrection [of the peasants] came to my own view, holding that all those who had once received the Spirit or the forgiveness of sins, or had become believers, even though they should afterwards sin, would still remain in the faith, and such sin would not harm them, and [hence] crying thus: "Do whatever you please; if you believe, it all amounts to nothing; faith blots out all sins," etc.-- they say, besides, that if any one sins after he has received faith and the Spirit, he never truly had the Spirit and faith: I have had before me [seen and heard] many such insane men, and I fear that in some such a devil is still remaining [hiding and dwelling].
It is, accordingly, necessary to know and to teach that when holy men, still having and feeling original sin, also daily repenting of and striving with it, happen to fall into manifest sins, as David into adultery, murder, and blasphemy, that then faith and the Holy Ghost has departed from them [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 accomplished, but represses and restrains it so that it must not do what it wishes.But if it does what it wishes, the Holy Ghost and faith are [certainly] not present.
For St.John says, 1 Ep.3, 9: Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin,...and he cannot sin.And yet it is also the truth when 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.
IV.Of the Gospel.
We will now return to the Gospel, which not merely in one way gives us counsel and aid against sin; for God is superabundantly rich [and liberal] in His grace [and goodness].First, through the spoken Word by which the forgiveness of sins is preached [He commands to be preached]
