e
are without Law, sin, and death. 41. But in as far as He is not yet
raised in us, in so far we are under the Law, sin, and death. 42.
Therefore the Law (as also the Gospel) must be preached, without
discrimination, to the righteous as well as to the wicked. 44. To the
pious, that they may thereby be reminded to crucify their flesh with its
affections and lusts, lest they become secure. [Gal. 5, 24.] 45. For
security abolishes faith and the fear of God, and renders the latter end
worse than the beginning. [2 Pet. 2, 20.] 46. It appears very clearly
that the Antinomians imagine sin to have been removed through Christ
essentially and philosophically or juridically (_formaliter et
philosophice seu iuridice_) 47. And that they do not at all know that
sin is removed only inasmuch as the merciful God does not impute it [Ps.
32, 2], and forgives it (_solum reputatione et ignoscentia Dei
miserentis_). 61. For if the Law is removed, no one knows what Christ
is, or what He did when He fulfilled the Law for us. 66. The doctrine of
the Law, therefore, is necessary in the churches, and by all means is to
be retained, as without it Christ cannot be retained. 67. For what will
you retain of Christ when (the Law having been removed which He
fulfilled) you do not know what He has fulfilled? 69. In brief, to
remove the Law and to let sin and death remain, is to hide the disease
of sin and death to men unto their perdition. 70. When death and sin are
abolished (as was done by Christ), then the Law would be removed
happily; moreover, it would be established, Rom. 3, 31." (Drews 423ff.;
St. L. 20, 1642ff.; E. 4, 436ff.)

190. Agricola's Retraction Written and Published by Luther.

Seeing his position in the Wittenberg University endangered, Agricola
was again ready to submit. And when a public retraction was demanded, he
even left it to Luther to formulate the recantation. Luther did so in a
public letter to Caspar Guettel in Eisleben, entitled, _Against the
Antinomians--Wider die Antinomer_, which he published in the beginning
of January, 1539. (St. L. 20, 1610.) In a crushing manner Luther here
denounced "the specter of the new spirits who dare thrust the Law or the
Ten Commandments out of the church and relegate it to the courthouse."

Complaining of "false brethren," Luther here says: "And I fear that, if
I had died at Smalcald [1537], I should forever have been called the
patron of such [antinomian] spirits, because they appeal to m