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 and the Spirit, he never truly had the Spirit and faith.  I have seen and heard of many men so insane, and I fear that such a devil is still remaining in some.  If, therefore, I say, such persons would hereafter also arise, it is necessary to know and teach that if saints who still have and feel original sin, and also daily repent and strive with it, fall in some way into manifest sins, as David into adultery, murder, and blasphemy, they cast out faith and the Holy Ghost.  For the Holy Ghost does not permit sin to have dominion, to gain the upper hand so as to be completed, but represses and restrains it so that it must not do what