s efforts to weed out every kind of synergistic or
Romanistic corruption. For here we read: "Thus far the mystery of
predestination is revealed to us in God's Word; and if we abide thereby
and cleave thereto, it is a very useful salutary, consolatory doctrine;
for it establishes very effectually the article that we are justified
and saved without all works and merits of ours, purely out of grace
alone, for Christ's sake. For before the time of the world, before we
existed, yea, before the foundation of the world was laid, when, of
course, we could do nothing good, we were according to God's purpose
chosen by grace in Christ to salvation, Rom. 9, 11; 2 Tim. 1, 9.
Moreover, all opinions and erroneous doctrines concerning the powers of
our natural will are thereby overthrown, because God in His counsel,
before the time of the world, decided and ordained that He Himself, by
the power of His Holy Ghost, would produce and work in us, through the
Word, everything that pertains to our conversion." (1077, 43f.; 837,
20.)

Again: "By this doctrine and explanation of the eternal and saving
choice of the elect children of God, His own glory is entirely and fully
given to God, that in Christ He saves us out of pure [and free] mercy,
without any merits or good works of ours, according to the purpose of
His will, as it is written Eph. 1, 5f.: 'Having predestinated us,'...
Therefore it is false and wrong when it is taught that not alone the
mercy of God and the most holy merit of Christ, but that also in us
there is a cause of God's predestination on account of which God has
chosen us to eternal life." Indeed, one of the most exclusive
formulations against every possible kind of subtile synergism is found
in Article XI when it teaches that the reason why some are converted and
saved while others are lost, must not be sought in man, _i.e._, in any
minor guilt or less faulty conduct toward grace shown by those who are
saved, as compared with the guilt and conduct of those who are lost.
(1081, 57f.) If, therefore, the argument of the Calvinists and
Synergists that the _sola gratia_ doctrine involves a denial of
universal grace were correct, the charge of Calvinism would have to be
raised against Article XI as well as against Article II.

In a similar manner the Second Article confirms the Eleventh by
corroborating its anti-Calvinistic teaching of universal grace and
redemption; of man's responsibility for his own damnation; of man's
con