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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: [For] some thought that they would never get out of purgatory,
because, according to the old canons seven years' repentance
is required for a single mortal sin. Nevertheless, confidence
was placed upon our work of satisfaction, and if the
satisfaction could have been perfect, confidence would have
been placed in it entirely, and neither faith nor Christ would
have been of use. But this confidence was impossible. For
although any one had done penance in that way for a hundred
years, he would still not have known whether he had finished
his penance. That meant forever to do penance and never to
come to repentance.
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