for man is not impossible
with God who, indeed, is able to convert man, endow him with new
spiritual powers, and lead him to eternal salvation,--a goal for the
attainment of which, in contradistinction from inanimate and other
creatures, man, being a rational creature, endowed with intellect and
will, was created by God and redeemed by Christ. In the _Formula of
Concord_ we read: "And although God, according to His just, strict
sentence, has utterly cast away the fallen evil spirits forever, He has
nevertheless, out of special, pure mercy, willed that poor fallen human
nature might again become and be capable and participant of conversion,
the grace of God, and eternal life; not from its own natural, active [or
effective] skill, aptness, or capacity (for the nature of man is
obstinate enmity against God), but from pure grace, through the gracious
efficacious working of the Holy Ghost. And this Dr. Luther calls
_capacitatem_ (_non activam, sed passivam_), which he explains thus:
_Quando patres liberum arbitrium defendunt, capacitatem libertatis eius
praedicant, quod scilicet verti potest ad bonum per gratiam Dei et fieri
revera liberum, ad quod creatum est_. That is: When the Fathers defend
the free will, they are speaking of this, that it is capable of freedom
in this sense, that by God's grace it can be converted to good, and
become truly free, for which it was created in the beginning." (889,
20.)

This accords with Luther's words in _De Servo Arbitrio_: "It would be
correct if we should designate as the power of free will that [power] by
which man, who is created for life or eternal death, is apt to be moved
by the Spirit and imbued with the grace of God. For we, too, confess
this power, _i.e._, aptitude or, as the Sophists [Scholastic
theologians] say, disposition and passive aptitude. And who does not
know that trees and animals are not endowed with it? For, as the saying
goes, heaven is not created for geese. _Hanc enim vim, hoc est,
aptitudinem, seu, ut Sophistae loquuntur, dispositivam qualitatem et
passivam aptitudinem, et nos confitemur; quam non arboribus neque
bestiis inditam esse, quis est, qui nesciat? Neque enim pro anseribus,
ut dicitur, coelum creavit._" (E. v. a. 158: St. L. 18. 1720.)

XVI. The Osiandrian and Stancarian Controversies.

175. Osiander in Nuernberg and in Koenigsberg.

In the writings of Luther we often find passages foreboding a future
corruption of the doctrine of justification,