But what place is given to the virtues of the righteous in Christianity? “As even the righteous man is depraved by sin he cannot be inwardly righteous without the mercy of God.... In the believers and in those who sigh unrighteousness is absent only because Christ comes to their assistance with the fulness of His sinlessness, and covers over their imperfections.”[239] Even when we “do good, we sin” (“_bene operando peccamus_”), so runs his paradoxical thesis; “but Christ covers over what is wanting and does not impute it.” And why do we always sin in doing good? “Because owing to concupiscence and sensuality we do not perform the good with the intensity and purity of intention which the law demands, i.e. not with all our might (‘_ex omnibus viribus_,’ Luke x. 27), the desires of the flesh being too strong.”[240] The Church, on the other hand, teaches that good works done in the state of sanctifying grace are pleasing to God in spite of concupiscence, which, it is true, remains after baptism and after the blotting out of original sin which ensued, but which is not sinful so long as there is no consent to its enticements. As regards the distinction between mortal and venial sin, we find Luther’s doctrine has already reached its later standpoint, according to which there is no difference between them. In the same way he already denies the merit of good works. “It is clear,” he writes, “that according to substance and nature venial sin does not exist, and that there is no such thing as merit.”[241] All sins, in his opinion, are mortal, because even the smallest contains the deadly poison of concupiscence. With regard to merit, according to him, even “the saints have no merit of their own, but only Christ’s merits.”[242] Even in their actions the motive of perfect love was not sufficiently lively. “If it might be done unpunished and there were no expectation of reward, then even the good man would omit the good and do evil like the bad.”[243]