All the Scriptures, both of the Old and New testaments, are divided into, and teach, these two parts, namely, the law and the divine promises. In some places they present to us the law, and in others they offer us grace through the glorious promises of Christ; for example, the Old Testament, when it promises the coming Christ, and through him offers eternal blessings, eternal salvation, righteousness, and eternal life; or the New, when Christ, after his advent, promises in the Gospel, the remission of sins, eternal righteousness and life.

In this place, however, we call the law the Ten Commandments of God, wherever they appear in the Scriptures. It is not our purpose here to speak of the ceremonies and judicial laws.

Now, of these two parts our adversaries choose the law. For since the natural law, which agrees with the law of Moses or the Ten Commandments, is inborn and written in the hearts of all men, and human reason is therefore able, in some measure, to comprehend and understand the Ten Commandments, it imagines that the law is sufficient, and that remission of sin can be obtained through it.

But the Ten Commandments require not only an honorable life, or good works, externally, which reason can to some extent produce; they demand much higher things, beyond all human power and the reach of reason: namely, the law requires us to fear and love God with all sincerity, and from the bottom of our hearts; to call upon him in every time of need, and place our trust in nothing else.

Again, the law demands, that we neither doubt nor waver, but conclude with the utmost certainty in our hearts, that God is with us, hears our prayers, and grants our petitions; it demands, that in the midst of death we expect life and all manner of consolation from God; that in all our troubles we conform entirely to his will; that we shall not flee from him in death and affliction, but be obedient to him, and bear and suffer willingly, whatever may befall us. (This text is from The Henkel Translation of the Book of Concord, which is the only English translation based on the authoritative German Dresden Edition of 1580, p. 157-158).

The adversaries condemn the doctrine taught in the forth, fifth, sixth, and twentieth articles of our Confession, that believers obtain the remission of their sins through Christ, by faith alone, without any merit of their own; and insolently reject these two tenets; first, that we deny that man can obtain remission of his sins through his own merit; and secondly, that we hold, teach, and confess that no one is reconciled to God, or obtains remission of his sins, but through faith in Christ alone.

Now, since this controversy concerns the principal and most important article of the whole Christian doctrine, and as much indeed depends upon this article, which contributes especially to a clear, correct apprehension of all the holy Scriptures, and which alone shows the way to the unspeakable treasure and the true knowledge of Christ; yea, which is the only key to the whole Bible, and without which the poor conscience can have no true, invariable, fixed hope, nor conceive the riches of the grace of Christ;—we therefore pray your Imperial Majesty, graciously to hear us concerning these great, momentous, and all-important subjects, as the nature of the case demands. For, as our adversaries do not understand or know, what is meant in the Scriptures by remission of sin, by faith, grace and righteousness, they have miserably defiled this noble, indispensable, and leading article, without which no one can know Christ; they have entirely suppressed the invaluable treasure of the knowledge of Christ, of his kingdom, and of his grace; and robbed our poor consciences of this noble and great treasure and of this eternal comfort, so valuable and important to them.

But in order to confirm our Confession, and to refute what our adversaries have adducted, we shall, in the first place, show the foundation and reasons upon which both doctrines rest, so that each may be more clearly understood.  (This text is from The Henkel Translation of the Book of Concord, which is the only English translation based on the authoritative German Dresden Edition of 1580, p. 156-157).