Here in his mystical language he states the following paradoxical thesis: “the wisdom of the spiritually minded knows neither good nor evil (“_prudentia spiritualium neque bonum neque malum scit_”); it keeps its eyes fixed always on the word, not on the work.”[212] He concludes: “let us only close our eyes, listen in simplicity to the word, and do what it commands whether it be foolish or evil or great or small” (“_sive stultum sive malum, sive magnum sive parvum præcipiat, hoc faciamus_”).[213] As righteousness does not proceed from works we must so much the more cling to imputation. “Our works are nothing, we find in ourselves nothing but thoughts which accuse us ... where shall we find defenders? Nowhere but in Christ ... the heart, it is true, reproves a man for his evil works, it accuses him and witnesses against him. But he who believes in Christ turns at once [from himself] to Christ and says: He has done enough, He is righteous, He is my defence, He died for me, He has made His righteousness mine and my sin His. But if He has made my sin His, then it is no longer mine and I am free. If He has made His righteousness mine, then I am righteous through the same righteousness as He.”[214] Here then the sinner, as Luther teaches in his letter to Spenlein (see above, p. 88 ff.), simply casts himself upon Christ and hides himself just as he is “under the wings of the hen” (p. 80), comforting himself with the doctrine of imputation. The old Church, on the contrary, not only pointed to the merits of Christ (see above, pp. 10, 18) but also to the exhortations of St. Paul where he calls for zealous, active co-operation with the Divine grace, for inward conversion in the spirit, for works of penance and for purification from sin by contrition in order that our reconciliation with God and real pardon may become possible. Hence, while the Catholic doctrine conceives of justification as an interior, organic process, Luther is beginning to take it as something exterior and mechanical, as a process which results from the pushing forward of a foreign righteousness, as if it were a curtain. He turns away from the Catholic doctrine according to which a man justified by a living and active faith is really incorporated in Christ as the shoot is grafted into the olive tree, or the branch on the vine, i.e. to a new life, to an interior ennobling through sanctifying grace and the infused supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity.