Note 1136 — Chapter XVIII

Cp. his “Apologia” of the Augsburg Confession, Art. iv., “Symb. Bücher,” p. 87, where, on the doctrine of Justification, the old German translation runs: “Because the gainsayers know not nor understand what the words of Scripture mean, what forgiveness of sins, or grace, or faith, or justice is ... they have miserably robbed poor souls, to whom it was a matter of life and death, of their eternal consolation.” Page 90: “They do not know what the fear of death or the assaults of the devil are ... when the heart feels the anger of God or the conscience is troubled ... but the affrighted conscience knows well that it is impossible to merit either de condigno or de congruo, and therefore soon sinks into distrust and despair,” etc. Page 95: The new teaching alone was able “to raise up our hearts even amidst the terrors of sin and death,” etc. Hence Melanchthon insists in his “Brevis discendæ theologiæ ratio” (“Corp. ref.,” 2, p. 458), that Bible study served “ad usum et ad tentationes superandas comparanda cognitio.”