be mingled with one another, or a Law
be made out of the Gospel, whereby the merit of Christ is obscured and
troubled consciences are robbed of their comfort, which they otherwise
have in the holy Gospel when it is preached genuinely and in its purity,
and by which they can support themselves in their most grievous trials
against the terrors of the Law." (951, 1.) The concluding paragraph of
this article declares that the proper distinction between the Law and
the Gospel must be preserved, "in order that both doctrines, that of the
Law and that of the Gospel, be not mingled and confounded with one
another, and what belongs to the one may not be ascribed to the other,
_whereby the merit and benefits of Christ are easily obscured and the
Gospel is again turned into a doctrine of the Law_, as has occurred in
the Papacy, and thus Christians are deprived of the true comfort which
they have in the Gospel against the terrors of the Law, and the door is
again opened in the Church of God to the Papacy." (961, 27.) The blessed
Gospel, our only comfort and consolation against the terrors of the Law,
will be corrupted wherever the Law and the Gospel are not properly
distinguished,--such, then, was the view also of the _Formula of
Concord_.

Articles V and VI of the _Formula_ treat and dispose of the issues
raised by the Antinomians. In both Luther's doctrine is maintained and
reaffirmed. Article V, "Of the Law and Gospel," teaches that, in the
proper sense of the term, everything is Law that reveals and rebukes
sin, the sin of unbelief in Christ and the Gospel included; that Gospel,
in the proper and narrow sense, is nothing but a proclamation and
preaching of grace and forgiveness of sin, that, accordingly, the Law as
well as the Gospel are needed and must be retained and preached in the
Church. This was precisely what Luther had taught. In one of his theses
against Agricola he says: "Whatever discloses sin, wrath, or death
exercises the office of the Law; Law and the disclosing of sin or the
revelation of wrath are convertible terms. _Quidquid ostendit peccatum,
iram seu mortem, id exercet officium legis; lex et ostensio peccati seu
revelatio irae sunt termini convertibiles_." Article VI "Of the Third
Use of the Law," teaches that although Christians, in as far as they are
regenerate, do the will of God spontaneously, the Law must nevertheless
be preached to them on account of their Old Adam, not only as a mirror
revealing their