and full
Gospel if he had not declared the impossibility of any sin or any number
of sins depriving a believer of salvation.

But if the Catholics mean to say that Luther's evangelical declaration
means that no believer can fall from grace by sinning, that he may sin
and remain in a state of grace,--that is simply slander. Luther holds,
indeed, that a person does not cease to be a Christian by every slip and
fault, but he insists that no dereliction of duty, no deviation from the
rule of godly living can be treated with indifference. It must be
repented of, God's forgiveness must be sought, and only in this way will
the Holy Spirit again be bestowed on the sinner. God may bear awhile
with a Christian who has fallen into sin, but the backslider has no
pleasant time with his God while he stays a backslider. This being a
question of every-day, practical Christianity, Luther frequently touches
this subject in his sermons, both in the Church Postil, the House
Postil, and in his occasional sermons. Luther's Catholic critics could
disabuse their mind about the tendencies to lawlessness in Luther's
teaching if they would look up references such as these: 9, 730. 1456
f.; 11, 1790; 12, 448. 433; 13, 394; 6, 294. 1604. In one of these
references (9, 1456) Luther comments on 1 John 3, 6: "Whosoever abideth
in Him sinneth not; whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known
Him," as follows: "'Seeing' and 'knowing' in the phraseology of John is
as much as believing. `That every one which seeth the Son, and believeth
on Him, may have everlasting life' (John 6, 40). 'This is life eternal,
that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou
hast sent.' Accordingly, he that sins does not believe in Him; for faith
and sin cannot coexist. We may fall, but we may not cling to sin. The
kingdom of Christ is a kingdom of righteousness, not of sin." In the
Smalcald Articles Luther says: "But if certain sectarists would arise,
some of whom are perhaps already present, and in the time of the
insurrection of the peasants came to my view, holding that all those who
have once received the Spirit or the forgiveness of sins, or have become
believers, even though they would afterwards sin, would still remain in
the faith, and sin would not injure them, and cry thus: 'Do whatever you
please; if you believe, it is all nothing; faith blots out all sins,'
etc. They say, besides, that if any one sins after he has received faith
an