work deserves everlasting life as a due payment and reward for merit. For
the first, God is no debtor, they say; but because God is good and just, it is no
more than right (they say) that He should reward a good work by granting
grace for the service. But when grace has already been obtained, they
continue, God is in the position of a debtor, and is in duty bound to reward a
good work with the gift of eternal life. This is the wicked teaching of the
papacy.

Now, if I could perform any work acceptable to God and deserving of grace,
and once having obtained grace my good works would continue to earn for me
the right and reward of eternal life, why should I stand in need of the grace
of God and the suffering and death of Christ? Christ would be of no benefit to
me. Christ's mercy would be of no use to me.

This shows how little insight the pope and the whole of his religious coterie
have into spiritual matters, and how little they concern themselves with the
spiritual health of their forlorn flocks. They cannot believe that the flesh is
unable to think, speak, or do anything except against God. If they could see
evil rooted in the nature of man, they would never entertain such silly
dreams about man's merit or worthiness.

With Paul we absolutely deny the possibility of self merit. God never yet
gave to any person grace and everlasting life as a reward for merit. The
opinions of the papists are the intellectual pipe-dreams of idle pates, that
serve no other purpose but to draw men away from the true worship of God.
The papacy is founded upon hallucinations.

The true way of salvation is this. First, a person must realize that he is a
sinner, the kind of a sinner who is congenitally unable to do any good thing.
"Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin." Those who seek to earn the grace of God