The deeper ground, however, which led Luther in the above passages of the Commentary on Romans to attack the “Facienti,” etc., was that, in his antagonism against the good works of the self-righteous, he had, with the assistance of pseudo-mysticism, reached a point where he denied that any vital act on the part of man had any potency for the working out of salvation. In the work of salvation he allows of no power of choice: “The fulfilling of the law by our own efforts is absolutely impossible “; “free will is altogether in sin and cannot choose what is good in God’s sight.” See vol. ii., xiv. 3. Cp. W. Braun, “Die Bedeutung der Concupiscenz bei Luther,” pp. 215, 217, 219, 221.
Protestant theologians could, moreover, have found the axiom “Facienti,” etc., duly explained in the Catholic sense, with its biblical and patristic supports, even in the ordinary Catholic handbooks of theology, which would have obviated much misapprehension; cp., for instance, H. Hurter, “Theologiæ specialis pars altera,“¹¹ Innsbruck, 1903 (Compendium 3), p. 65 seq., 72 seq.
[511] “Schol. Rom.,” p. 183.
[512] “Schol. Rom.,” p. 183 f.
[513] Cp. ibid., pp. 114, 185, 187, 244.
[514] Ibid., p. 108.
[515] “Schol. Rom.,” p. 108 f. Cp. p. 178, where he complains that they had reached the “nocentissima fraus, ut baptizati vel absoluti, statim se sine omni peccato arbitrantes, securi fierent de adepta iustitia et manibus remissis quieti, nullius sc. conscii peccati, quod gemitu et lachrymis lugendo et laborando expugnarent atque expurgarent. Igitur peccatum est in spirituali homine relictum,” etc. It is clear that the continuance cf the “fomes peccati” is confused with the continuance of sin and the languor which is frequently due to weakness after the extirpation of sin, with a languor which must necessarily set in. The “grace which is given” he sometimes looks upon as actual, sometimes as saving grace. To follow him through all his erroneous notions would be endless.
[516] Ibid., p. 114.
[517] Ibid., p. 167.
[518] Ibid., p. 111.