justification by faith self-reflected. But, humanly considered, this
position of Luther's provokes the mind to ask, is there no receptivity
of faith, considered as a free gift of God, prerequisite in the
individual? Does faith commence by generating the receptivity of itself?
If so, there is no difference either in kind or in degree between the
receivers and the rejectors of the word, at the moment preceeding this
reception or rejection; and a stone is a subject as capable of faith as
a man. How can obedience exist, where disobedience was not possible?
Surely two or three texts from St. Paul, detached from the total
'organismus' of his reasoning, ought not to out-weigh the plain fact,
that the contrary position is implied in, or is an immediate consequent
of, our Lord's own invitations and assurances. Every where a something
is attributed to the will. [2]


Chap. XIII. p. 211.

To conclude, a faithful person is a new creature, a new tree.
Therefore all these speeches, which in the law are usual, belong not
to this case; as to say 'A faithful' person must do good works.
Neither were it rightly spoken, to say the sun shall shine: a good
tree shall bring forth good fruit, &c. For the sun 'shall' not shine,
but it doth shine by nature unbidden, it is thereunto created.

This important paragraph is obscure by the translator's ignorance of the
true import of the German 'soll', which does not answer to our 'shall;'
but rather to our 'ought', that is, 'should' do this or that,--is under
an obligation to do it.