# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1863_S293
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Some Remarks on a New Apology for the Reformed Church. 293

Furthermore, Melanchthon there appropriates to himself Basil's word: "You need only will it, and God will come to meet you."*) Further, the Chrysostomic saying: "God draws, but he draws the one who is willing."**) Further: Christ "wills that we recognize our sins and seek deliverance, not holding them fast against our conscience; the will is therefore not idle."†) Finally Melanchthon writes: "Free will is called the capacity of the will to choose and to desire what is set before it, and to reject the same — a capacity which, in unspoiled nature, was far more excellent, but is now hindered in many ways."††) These, then, were the fruitful seeds of synergism which are already found in Melanchthon's later writings and were further developed by the synergists in the period that followed.

How, then, has the Formula of Concord taken its stand against this? It has not only decisively rejected and condemned the gross consequences of synergism, but also those more subtle beginnings of it, and has not let itself be kept from pronouncing the anathema over the latter as well, although they could be, and were, traced back to so highly celebrated a man as Melanchthon was. In the article on free will, in the recapitulation [the Solid Declaration], it sets forth the principal antithesis as follows: "The one party has held and taught that, although man of his own powers is not able to keep God's commandment, to trust, fear, and love God in truth without the grace of the Holy Spirit; yet he still has so much natural power remaining before regeneration that he can in some measure prepare himself for grace and, though feebly, give his consent;*†) but when the grace of the Holy Spirit does not come to it, he can accomplish nothing thereby, but must lie prostrate in the struggle." As its own doctrine, by contrast, the Formula of Concord first lays down the following: "That in spiritual and divine matters the understanding, heart, and will of the unregenerate man, of their own natural powers, can understand, believe, accept, conceive, will, begin, accomplish, do, work, or cooperate toward nothing whatsoever; but are altogether dead and corrupted as regards the good, so that in man's nature after the fall, before regeneration, there has remained, nor is present, so much as a spark of spiritual power with which he might of himself prepare himself for the grace of God, or the

*) Μόνον θέλησον, καὶ θεὸς προσαπαντᾷ.
Only will it, and God comes to meet you.

**) Ὁ δὲ ἕλκων τὸν βουλόμενον ἕλκει.
He who draws, draws the one who is willing.

†) „Vult nos agnoscere peccata et quaerere liberationem, non retinere ea contra conscientiam: non igitur est otiosa voluntas.“
"He wills that we recognize our sins and seek deliverance, not holding them fast against our conscience: the will is therefore not idle."

††) „Vocatur liberum arbitrium facultas voluntatis ad eligendum ac expetendum ea, quae monstrata sunt, et ad rejiciendum eadem. Quae facultas in natura integra longe praestantior fuit, nunc multipliciter impedita est.“
"Free will is called the capacity of the will to choose and desire what has been shown to it, and to reject the same. Which capacity was far more excellent in unspoiled nature, and is now hindered in many ways."

*†) „Reliquum esse, ut aliquo modo se ad gratiam Dei praeparare, applicare et assentiri, languide tamen, possit.“
"It remains that he can in some way prepare himself for the grace of God, apply himself to it, and assent to it, though feebly."