“Sola gratis" can mean two different things, but neither your response here or the rest of your post deals with the fact that you characterized sola fide as being rejected by Catholics because faith accompanies works, which is what Reformers actually taught, but not that the effect was the cause or basis for stultification.
Lutherans now claim that Luther didn’t mean many of the things he said literally.
Actually one of the multitudes of things Catholics disagree about is what Luther and Reformers meant, and whether the anathemas apply to Prots today. See The Roman Catholic Perspective of Martin Luther (Part Two)
did Luther correct the misunderstandings? Did he watch his loose tongue? Just the opposite! He began to say, “Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (:
Another one. Once again, you hurt your own credibility by parroting such papal polemics, and rather than quote Luther from dubious sources or without examining context or understanding the polemical language, which superficial skeptics with an agenda do (expressing indignation that Jesus commended an unjust steward, and call a women a dog, and Paul relegated all the Cretans to being lying gluttons), you would do well to research here before pasting another quote.
Rather than than informal argumentation with its hyperbole, here is some of what Luther actually taught in sermons.
In his Introduction to Romans, Luther stated that saving faith is, a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn’t stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever...Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire! [http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/luther-faith.txt]
This is what I have often said, if faith be true, it will break forth and bear fruit. If the tree is green and good, it will not cease to blossom forth in leaves and fruit. It does this by nature. I need not first command it and say: Look here, tree, bear apples. For if the tree is there and is good, the fruit will follow unbidden. If faith is present works must follow.” [Sermons of Martin Luther 2.2:340-341]
“We must therefore most certainly maintain that where there is no faith there also can be no good works; and conversely, that there is no faith where there are no good works. Therefore faith and good works should be so closely joined together that the essence of the entire Christian life consists in both.” [Martin Luther, as cited by Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963], 246, footnote 99]
The Westminster Confession of Faith states:
Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification; yet it is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but works by love. [Westminster Confession of Faith, CHAPTER XI. Of Justification. http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/creeds/wcf.htm]
As for Calvin, what can be said of a man who tried to ban the celebration of mass?
Neither Luther or Calvin were much my mentors, but what Rome has turned the Lord supper into is not Scriptural.
As noted, the Catholic church and the German Free (Lutheran) Church have come to a concordant on the doctrine of the means of salvation. My point is not to degrade Luther; I fully realize that he is not regarded as infallible by any Protestant, and so any Protestant can disavow anything Luther has said or done without damaging their creed.
My only point is to clarify what the Catholic Church was and was not condemning. The Church reasonably understood Luther to mean certain things. One might think he would deny such matters. Or even watch his tongue after the horrific bloodshed of the German Peasant’s War was reasonably attributable to the peasants taking at face value his statements on the invalidity of church power... and then the nobility slaughtering them by the millions because they took literally his claims that peasants were born to be cannon fodder.
It’s beside the point I’m making if he didn’t mean these things, and I understand that modern Lutherans are neither fools nor liars for claiming he didn’t. BUt if you’re saying that the Catholic Church cannot hold salvation by grace because that’s what the reformers believed in and the reformers fought with the Catholic church, then it’s important to clarify that the Catholic church’s problem was not with the modern understanding of salvation by faith alone, but with these other statements which Luther did, in fact, make.
Did Luther make statements contrary to those that offended Rome? Absolutely! He would hardly be the first politician to speak out of both sides of his mouth, or to change his mind. One moment, he was calling the Turks the hand of God and condemning those who resist them. The next he was condemning them as worthy of certain death. But wait, the Turks could tie up the Catholic princes in Germany? Let’s here it for Mohammed!!! Cried all the Lutheran princes!
Obviously Martin was reacting to what he saw going on around him with his fellow Catholics...
Brings a picture to mind; Standing in a beautiful orchard (I live in orchard country) of Red Delicious apples with the sweet fruit hanging from the branches amongst the dark green leaves...
Interspersed thru out the orchard are trees barren of real leaves and fruit with crepe and craft paper cutouts of leaves and apples glued to the otherwise empty branches, proudly standing amongst the trees bearing the real leaves and fruit, not knowing the harvester will pass them by...
Well that seems to put the James 2:24 'charge' to rest.