[Article XIX(VIII): Of the Cause of Sin]

Written in Latin by Philip Melanchthon (1531)

Translated from the Latin into German by Justus Jonas (1531)

English Translation by Ambrose and Socrates Henkel (1851), Revised by W. F. Lehmann (1854)

Link to Bente/Dau Translation from Latin (1921)

[1(77)] Our adversaries do not object to the nineteenth article, in which we teach that although God alone has created the whole world and all nature, and continually preserves all creatures, yet he is not the cause of sin; but that it is the evil will in devils and men, which turns away from God; as Christ says of the devil, John 8:44: "When the devil speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own."

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