Is it correct to say: God requires good works, or, Good works are necessary, and, Christians are obliged or in duty bound to do good works (_bona opera sunt necessaria et debita_)? This question, too, was a point of dispute in the Majoristic controversy. Originally the controversy concerning these terms and phrases was a mere logomachy, which, however, later on (when, after the error lurking in the absolute rejection of them had been pointed out, the phrases were still flatly condemned), developed into a violent controversy. The _Formula of Concord_ explains: "It has also been argued by some that good works are not _necessary (noetig)_, but are _voluntary (freiwillig)_, because they are not extorted by fear and the penalty of the Law, but are to be done from a voluntary spirit and a joyful heart. Over against this the other side contended that good works are _necessary_. This controversy was originally occasioned by the words _necessitas_ and _libertas_ ["_notwendig_" und "_frei_"], that is, necessary and free, because especially the word _necessitas,_ necessary, signifies not only the eternal, immutable order according to which all men are obliged and in duty bound to obey God, but sometimes also a coercion, by which the Law forces men to good works. But afterwards there was a disputation not only concerning the words, but the doctrine itself was attacked in the most violent manner, and it was contended that the new obedience in the regenerate is not necessary because of the above-mentioned divine order." (939, 4f.) From the very beginning of the Reformation the Romanists had slandered Luther also by maintaining that he condemned good works and simply denied their necessity. A similar charge was made by the Majorists against their opponents generally. And Melanchthon's writings, too, frequently create the same impression. But it was an inference of their own. They argued: If good works are not necessary to salvation, they cannot be necessary at all. Wigand wrote: "It is a most malicious and insidious trait in the new teachers [the Majorists] that they, in order to gloss over their case, cry out with the Papists that the controversy is whether good works are necessary. But this is not in dispute, for no Christian ever denied it. Good works are necessary; that is certainly true. But the conflict arises from the appendix attached to it, and the patch pasted to it, _viz._, 'to salvation.' And here all God-fearing men say that it is a detrimental, offensive, damnable, papistic appendix." (Planck 4, 498. 544.)