Then, returning to the grand doctrine of the Reformation, and recalling to mind that the doctors of the Pope "have never ceased impelling the faithful to puerile and useless works, as the custom of chaplets, invocations of saints, monastic vows, processions, fasts, feast-days, brotherhoods," the Protestants added, that as for themselves, while urging the practice of truly Christian works, of which little had been said before their time,[569] "they taught that man is justified by faith alone; not by that faith which is a simple knowledge of the history, and which wicked men and even devils possess, but by a faith which believes not only the history, but also the effect of the history;[570] which believes that through Christ we obtain grace; which sees that in Christ we have a merciful Father; which knows this God; which calls upon him; in a word, which is not without God, as the heathen are." [569] De quibus rebus olim parum docebant concionatores; tantum puerilia et non necessaria opera urgebant.--(F. Urkund. i. p. 495.) [570] Non tantum historiæ notitiam, sed fidem quæ credit non tantum historiam, sed etiam effectum historiæ.--(F. Urkund. i. p. 498.) "Such," said Bayer, "is a summary of the doctrine professed in our Churches, by which it may be seen that this doctrine is by no means opposed to Scripture, to the universal Church, nor even to the Romish Church, such as the doctors describe it to us;[571] and since it is so, to reject us as heretics is an offence against unity and charity." [571] Nihil inesse quod discrepat a Scripturis vel ab Ecclesia Catholica, vel ab Ecclesia Romana, quatenus ex Scriptoribus nota est.--(Ibid. p. 501.) [Sidenote: LUTHER ON THE CONFESSION.]