odly and righteous, and
eternally saves us." (919, 16.)--

In their zealous opposition to the doctrine of Osiander according to
which the indwelling essential holiness of the divine nature of Christ
is our righteousness before God, also the Hamburg ministers went a step
too far in the opposite direction. They denied, or at any rate seemed to
deny, the indwelling of the Holy Trinity as such in believers. In their
_Response (Responsio)_ of 1552 they declared: "God is said to dwell
where He is present by His grace and benevolence, where He gives the
Word of His grace, and reveals His promises concerning His mercy and the
remission of sins, where He works by His Spirit, etc." (Frank 2, 107.)
Again: "That His indwelling pertains to His efficacy and operation
appears from many passages which describe without a figure the efficacy
and operation of Christ and of the Holy Spirit dwelling in believers."
"The dwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers signifies that they are
led by the Spirit of God." "But it cannot be proved by the Scripture
that the fulness of God dwells bodily in us as it dwells in Christ
Jesus. The inhabitation of God in us is a matter of grace, not of
nature; of gift, not of property." (107.)

In 1551 Melanchthon had written: "It must be admitted that God dwells in
our hearts, not only in such a manner that He there is efficacious,
though not present with His own essence, but that He is both present and
efficacious. A personal union, however, does not take place in us, but
God is present in us in a separable manner as in a separable domicile."
(_C. R._ 7, 781.) This was the view of the Lutheran theologians
generally. Article III of the _Formula of Concord_, too, is emphatic in
disavowing a personal union of the deity and humanity in believers, as
well as in asserting that God Himself, not merely His gifts, dwell in
Christians. (935, 54; 937, 65.) In addition to the aberrations
enumerated, Article III rejects also some of the Roman and the
Romanizing errors concerning justification in the Leipzig Interim, and
some views entertained by Majorists which are extensively and _ex
professo_ dealt with in Article IV. (CONC. TRIGL. 917, 5.)

XVII. The Antinomistic Controversy.

183. Distinction between Law and Gospel of Paramount Import.

Zwingli, who was a moralist and a Humanist rather than a truly
evangelical reformer, taught: "In itself the Law is nothing else than a
Gospel; that is, a good, certain message fr