Nor did Major later on ever admit that he had erred in the matter. In an oration delivered 1567 he boasted of his intimate relation and doctrinal agreement with Luther and Melanchthon, adding: "Neither did I ever deviate, nor, God assisting me, shall I ever deviate, from the truth once acknowledged. _Nec discessi umquam nec Deo iuvante discedam ab agnita semel veritate._" He had never thought or taught, said he, that good works are a cause of justification. And concerning the proposition, "Good works are necessary to salvation," he had expressly declared that he intended to abstain from its use "because it had offended some on account of its ambiguity, _cum propter ambiguitatem offenderit aliquos._" He continued: "The facts show that we [the professors of Wittenberg University] are and have remained guardians of that doctrine which Luther and Melanchthon ... delivered to us, in whose writings from the time of the [Augsburg] Confession there is neither a dissonance nor a discrepancy, either among themselves or from the foundation, nor anything obscure or perplexing." (Frank 2, 224. 167.) Also in his Testament (_Testamentum Doctoris Georgii Majoris_), published 1570, Major emphatically denied that he had ever harbored or taught any false views concerning justification, salvation, and good works. Of his own accord he had also abandoned the phrases: "Good works are necessary to salvation; it is impossible to be saved without good works; no one has ever been saved without good works--_Bona opera sunt necessaria ad salutem; impossibile est, sine bonis operibus salvum fieri; nemo umquam sine bonis operibus salvatus est._" He had done this in order to obviate the misapprehension as though he taught that good works are a cause of salvation which contribute to merit and effect salvation. According to this _Testament,_ he desired his doctrines and writings to be judged. In future he would not dispute with anybody about these phrases. (168.) Thus in his _Testament,_ too, Major withdrew his statements not because they were simply false, but only because they had been interpreted to mean that good works are the efficient cause of justification and salvation. And while Major in later writings did eliminate the appendix "_ad salutem,_ to salvation," or "_ad vitam aeternam,_ to eternal life," he retained, and continued to teach, essentially the same error in another garb, namely, that good works are necessary in order to retain faith. Enumerating, in his _Explanation of the Letter to the Galatians,_ of 1560, the purposes on account of which good works ought to be rendered, he mentions as the "first, in order to retain faith, the Holy Spirit, the grace bestowed, and a good conscience." (218.)