it is faith which
justifies and cleanses. Rom 1, 17; 10, 10; Acts 15, 9. But if it
justifies and purifies, love must be present. The Spirit cannot but
impart love together with faith. In fact, where true faith is, the
Holy Spirit dwells; and where the Holy Spirit is, there must be love
and every excellence. How is it, then, Paul speaks as if faith without
love were possible? We reply, this one text cannot be understood as
subverting and militating against all those texts which ascribe
justification to faith alone. Even the sophists have not attributed
justification to love, nor is this possible, for love is an effect, or
fruit, of the Spirit, who is received through faith.

8. Three answers may be given to the question. First, Paul has not
reference here to the Christian faith, which is inevitably accompanied
by love, but to a general faith in God and his power. Such faith is a
gift; as, for instance, the gift of tongues, the gift of knowledge, of
prophecy, and the like. There is reason to believe Judas performed
miracles in spite of the absence of Christian faith, according to John
6, 70: "One of you is a devil." This general faith, powerless to
justify or to cleanse, permits the old man with his vices to remain,
just as do the gifts of intellect, health, eloquence, riches.

9. A second answer is: Though Paul alludes to the true Christian
faith, he has those in mind who have indeed attained to faith and
performed miracles with it, but fall from grace through pride, thus
losing their faith. Many begin but do not continue. They are like the
seed in stony ground. They soon fall from faith. The temptations of
vainglory are mightier than those of adversity. One who has the true
faith and is at the same time able to perform miracles is likely to
seek and to accept honor with such eagerness as to fall from both love
and faith.

10. A third answer is: Paul in his effort to present the necessity of
love, supposes an impossible condition. For instance, I might express
myself in this way: "Though you were a god, if you lacked patience you
would be nothing." That is, patience is so essential to divinity that
divinity itself could not exist without it, a proposition necessarily
true. So Paul's meaning is, not that faith could exist without love,
but on the contrary, so much is love an essential of faith that even
mountain-moving faith would be nothing without love, could we separate
the two even in theory.

The third answer p