21. 3 The leading reformers — Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin — retained all the dogmas regarding the trinity of persons in the Divine, original sin, the assigning of Christ’s merit to us, and our being justified by faith, in the same past and present form they had had among Roman Catholics. The reformers separated goodwill or good works from that faith, however, and declared that our good works contribute nothing to our salvation, for the purpose of clearly differentiating themselves from Roman Catholics with regard to the essentials of the church, which are faith and goodwill.
Survey of Teachings of the New Church # 6
6. Concerning free choice:
(a) Free choice was by no means extinguished by Adam’s sin, but was attenuated in its powers and bent down (Session 6, chapter 1).
(b) If any say that our free choice, once it is moved and stirred by God, does not cooperate at all through giving assent to God’s stirring and calling, in order to dispose and prepare us for obtaining the grace of justification, or that even if it wants to, it cannot refuse its consent, but, like something inanimate, does nothing whatever and is merely passive, let them be anathema (Session 6, canon 4).


