corrupt will of man retains the power to decide also in favor of the
operations of the Holy Spirit. And if I answer that original sin is not
an accident (such as you have in mind), you will again infer what I
disavow, _viz._, that man, who by the Fall has lost the ability to will
in the spiritual direction, has _eo ipso_ lost the will and its freedom
entirely and as such." As it was, however, Flacius instead of adhering
strictly to the real issue--the question concerning man's cooperation in
conversion--and exposing the sophistry implied in the question put by
Strigel, most unfortunately suffered himself to be caught on the horns
of the dilemma. He blindly walked into the trap set for him by Strigel,
from which also later on he never succeeded in fully extricating
himself.

With all his soul Flacius rejected the synergism involved in Strigel's
question. His blunder was, as stated, that he did so in terms
universally regarded as Manichean. He was right when he maintained that
original sin is the inherited tendency and motion of the human mind,
will, and heart, not toward, but against God,--a direction, too, which
man is utterly unable to change. But he erred fatally by identifying
this inborn evil tendency with the substance of fallen man and the
essence of his will as such. It will always be regarded as a redeeming
feature that it was in antagonizing synergism and championing the
Lutheran _sola gratia_ that Flacius coined his unhappy proposition. And
in properly estimating his error, it must not be overlooked that he, as
will be shown in the following, employed the terms "substance" and
"accident" not in their generally accepted meaning but in a sense, and
according to a philosophical terminology, of his own.

169. Formal and Material Substance.

The terms "substance" and "accident" are defined in Melanchthon's
_Erotemata Dialectices_ as follows: "_Substantia est ens, quod revera
proprium esse habet, nec est in alio, ut habens esse a subiecto._
Substance is something which in reality has a being of its own and is
not in another as having its being from the subject." (_C. R._ 13,
528.) "_Accidens est quod non per sese subsistit, nec est pars
substantiae, sed in alio est mutabiliter._ Accident is something which
does not exist as such nor is a part of the substance, but is changeable
in something else." (522.) Melanchthon continues: "Accidentium alia sunt
separabilia ut frigus ab aqua, notitia a mente, laetitia, tristit