#63 Art. IV “Justification” of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession.…our works or worship cannot afford peace to our consciences, when we truly feel the judgment and wrath of God, or fall in temptation. {Repeated for context}
The Scriptures abundantly confirm this, as in Psalm 143:2: “Enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.” Here the Psalmist clearly testifies, that all the saints, all the pious children of God, having the Holy Spirit, unless God remit their sins through grace, have sins still remaining in the flesh. When David says in another place: “Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness,” (Psalm 7:8,) he speaks of his cause, and not of his own righteousness; but his prayer is, that God would protect his cause and his Word,—since he says: Judge, Lord! my cause. Again, Psalm 130:3, he clearly asserts, that no one, not even the greatest saint, can bear the judgment of God, if he would mark iniquities, saying: “If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?”
And thus Job says, 9:28: “I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that thou wilt not hold me innocent.” Again, verses 30, 31: “If I wash myself with snow-water, and make my hands never so clean; yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.” Again in the Proverbs of Solomon 20:9: “Who can say, I have made my heart clean?” And 1 John:1,8: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”— (Henkel Translation, p. 187-188).
