Based upon the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles, Jesus Christ Himself Being the Chief Corner-stone.'" It was the first book to appear from the pen of a Lutheran pastor in America, and till the awakening of Confessional Lutheranism the only uncompromising presentation of Lutheran doctrine. V. E. Loescher praised it as being an "Anti-Calvinistic Compend of Doctrine, Compendium Doctrinae Anti-Calvinianum." The chapter on the "Freedom of the Will," which is embodied in Graebner's _History of the Lutheran Church in America_, bespeaks theological acumen and clarity on the part of the author. In simple catechetical form, together with most appropriate Bible-passages, Falckner presents the following truths: Having lost the divine image, man, by his own natural free will, can neither understand, will, nor do that which is spiritually right, good, and pleasing to God. Man is converted to God and to all that is "thoroughly good" only by the grace and power of God. It is God's pleasure to work in every man in order that he may will and do that which is good. The reason why this is not accomplished in all men is, because many wilfully resist the work of God's grace, despise the means of conversion, and thus, by their own stubborn and evil wills, frustrate the good and gracious will of God. Man has a _free_ will; for he does the evil and rejects the good freely and without constraint, without any compulsion on the part of God. Furthermore, in external matters, which reason comprehends, man also has a free will, in a measure. The will of a regenerate Christian is set free, inasmuch as he is able to will that which is pleasing to God, by faith in Jesus Christ, although, in this world, he is not able perfectly to do that which is good. Falckner says: "I conceive this doctrine of free will as follows: All the good which I will and do I ascribe to the grace of God in Christ and to the working of His good Spirit within me, render thanks to Him for it, and watch that I may traffic with the pound of grace, Luke 19, which I have received, in order that more may be given unto me, and that I may receive grace for grace out of the fulness of grace in Jesus Christ. John 1, 16. On the contrary, all the evil which I will and do I ascribe to my own evil will alone, which maliciously deviates from God and His gracious will, and becomes one with the will of the devil, the world, and sinful flesh. And I am persuaded that if only my own will does not dishonestly, wilfully, and stubbornly resist the converting gracious will of God, He, by His Spirit, will bend and turn it toward that which is good, and, for the sake of Christ's perfect obedience, will not regard, nor impute unto me, the obstinacy cleaving to me by nature." In the introduction of the book, which was written in the Dutch language, Falckner unequivocally professes adherence to the Symbols of the Lutheran Church, the confession of his fathers, "which confession and faith," he says, "by