# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1863_S299
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Some Remarks on a New Apology for the Reformed Church. 299

with the Calvinists a bridge of reason over the yawning abyss
of this inexplicable mystery, lets both stand, and prays in humility,
adoring God in his incomprehensible wisdom, awaiting the resolution of this seeming
contradiction in eternal life.

Thus the Formula of Concord explains: "As God is not a cause
of sin, so likewise he is no cause of the punishment of damnation, but
the sole cause of damnation is sin." It writes further:
"Accordingly we reject the following errors: 1. As when it is taught
that God does not will that all men should do penance and believe the
Gospel. 2. Item, when God calls us to himself, that it is not
his earnest will that all men should come to him. 3. Item, that
God does not will that everyone be saved, but that, without regard to their
sin, he has, solely from the bare counsel, purpose, and will
of God, ordained them to damnation, so that they cannot
be saved." At the same time, however, it rejects as an error: "4. Item,
that not the mercy of God and the most holy merit of Christ alone,
but also something in us,
is a cause of God's election, on account of which God has
elected us to eternal life. All of which are blasphemous and dreadful
erroneous doctrines, by which Christians are robbed of all the comfort
they have in the holy Gospel and the use of the holy Sacraments, and
which for that reason should not be tolerated in the Church of God." What the
Formula of Concord here expresses negatively in the last antithesis, it expresses
positively elsewhere, where it states: "But the eternal election of God
not only foresees and knows the salvation of the elect
beforehand, but is also, from the gracious will and good pleasure of God in
Christ Jesus, a cause which itself
creates, works, helps, and promotes our salvation and what belongs
to it; upon which our salvation is also so grounded
that the gates of hell shall have no power against it;
as it is written: No one shall pluck my sheep
out of my hand; and again: And as many as were
ordained to eternal life believed." So the
Formula of Concord adds at the close: "As far as we go in this article,
so far we remain on the right path, as it is written, Hosea 13:
O Israel, thou that destroyest thyself, the guilt is thine; but that
thou art helped, that is purely my grace." With this,
all the rightly-believing theologians of our Church agree as well. Thus
Johann Gerhard writes, for example: "By no merits of men,
by no worthiness of the human race, indeed, not even
by the foreseeing of good works or of faith, has God
been moved to elect some to eternal life; rather, this is
to be ascribed wholly and alone to his unmerited and immeasurable grace.
Ephesians 1:6: He has chosen us to the praise of his glorious
grace. Romans 11:6: But if it is of grace, then it is no more of works