With reference to man’s natural powers, that cardinal point of Luther’s later teaching, neither the ability to be good and pleasing to God, nor the freedom of choosing what is right and good in spite of concupiscence, is denied.[160] Concupiscence, as he frequently admonishes us, must be driven back, “it must not be allowed the mastery,” though it will always make itself felt; it is like a Red Sea through the midst of which we must pass, refusing our consent to the temptations which press upon us like an advancing tide.[161] Luther lays great weight on the so-called Syntheresis, the inner voice which, according to the explanation of the schoolmen, he believes cries longingly to God, by whom also it is heard; it is the ineradicable precious remnant of good left in us,[162] and upon which grace acts. Man’s salvation is in his own hands inasmuch as he is able either to accept or to reject the law of God.[163] Luther also speaks of a preparation for grace (“_dispositio et præparatio_”) which God’s preventing, supernatural grace assists.[164] He expressly invokes the traditional theological axiom that “God’s grace is vouchsafed to everyone who does his part.”[165] He even teaches, following Occam’s school, that such self-preparation constitutes a merit “_de congruo_.”[166] He speaks as a Catholic of the doctrine of merit, admits the so-called _thesaurus meritorum_ from which indulgences derive their efficacy, and, without taking offence, alludes to satisfaction (_satisfactio operis_),”[167] to works of supererogation,[168] as also to the place of purification in the next world (_purgatorium_).[169] Regarding God’s imputing of righteousness he follows, it is true, the Occamist doctrine, and on this subject the following words are the most interesting: faith and grace by which we to-day (i.e. in the present order of things) are justified, would not justify without the intervention of the _pactum Dei_; i.e. of God’s mercy, who has so ordained it, but who might have ordained otherwise.[170] Friedrich Loofs rightly says regarding imputation in the Commentary on the Psalms: “It must be noted that the _reputari iustum_, i.e. the being-declared-justified, is not considered by Luther as the reverse of making righteous; on the contrary, the _sine merito iustificari_ in the sense of _absolvi_ is at the same time the beginning of a new life.”[171] “The faith,” so A. Hunzinger opines of the passages in question in the same work, “is as yet no imputative faith,” i.e. not in the later Lutheran sense.[172]