St. Paul and St. James are thus found to be agreed. It remains to be shown that in spite of his own statements to the contrary, Luther was as fully agreed with the latter as with the former. When he writes about St. James, Luther's prejudices lead him to disparage a form of teaching which he has not been at the pains to comprehend. But when he expounds St. Paul he does so in words which would serve excellently as an exposition of the teaching of St. James. In his preface to the Epistle to the Romans he writes thus: "But faith is a Divine work in us, that changes us and begets us anew of God (John i. 13); and kills the old man, makes of us quite other men in heart, courage, mind, and strength, and brings the Holy Spirit with it. Oh, it is a living, active, energetic, mighty thing, this faith, _so that it is impossible that it should not work what is good without intermission. It does not even ask whether good works are to be done, but before one asks it has done them, and is ever doing._ But he who does not do such works is a man without faith, is fumbling and looking about him for faith and good works, and knows neither the one nor the other, yet chatters and babbles many words about both.
"Faith is a living, deliberate confidence in the grace of God, so sure that it would die a thousand times for its trust. And such confidence and experience of Divine grace make a man merry, bold, and joyful towards God and all creatures; all which the Holy Spirit does in faith. Hence the man without compulsion becomes willing and joyful to do good to every one, to serve every one, to endure everything, for the love and praise of God, who has shown him such grace. Therefore _it is impossible to sever works from faith; yea, as impossible as to sever burning and shining from fire_."[64]
[60] _Introduction to the N.T._, 4th ed. (Murray, 1889), pp. 504, 506, a work which may be most heartily commended to every student of the New Testament.
[61] _History of the Sacred Scriptures of the N.T._, translated by E. L. Houghton (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1884), p. 143.
[62] See the passages quoted by Hatch, _Essays in Biblical Greek_, pp. 85-87 (Oxford, 1889).
[63] This kind of error is alluded to by Justin Martyr, in his _Dialogue with the Jew Trypho_: "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin; that is, who receives remission of his sins from God as having repented of his sins; but not as ye deceive yourselves, and some other (Jews) who resemble you in this, who say that even if they are sinners, but attain to a knowledge of God, the Lord will not impute sin to them" (cxli., p. 370, D).
[64] _Werke_, ed. Gustav Pfizer, Frankfurt am Main, 1840, p. 1415.