The public confessions: Thorn and the English confession
Thesis XXXIV. There is no need here to go through the testimonies of private doctors. Anyone can learn and confirm what our churches hold on this question from their public confessions and declarations.
The confession of the Reformed in the kingdom of Poland, presented at the Colloquy of Thorn (chapter 4, section 2, part 10), puts it this way: 'We are falsely accused of holding that the faithful cannot keep Christ's precepts in any way. We teach that they can be kept, not by our own strength but by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and more than that, that everyone is bound to keep them fully: not merely in wish or in a purpose that comes to nothing, but in actual deed, with a true, sincere zeal that lasts the whole of life.
In this life, however, no one keeps them so perfectly, or can, that we satisfy God's law and fulfil it in every respect. We still need, aware of our own imperfection and weakness, to ask God every day to pardon our many slips and offences.'
The English confession of 1645 states the same doctrine in other words in chapter 19, paragraph 7, where it says that Christ's Spirit so tames and bends the human will that it does readily and gladly what God's will, revealed in his law, requires.
Latin
XXXIV. Verum hic non opus est privatorum Doctorum testimonia recensere, cum quae sit in hac quaestione Ecclesiarum nostrarum sententia, publicis earum confessionibus & declarationibus, cuivis notum & compertum esse possit. Sic enim habet confessio Reformatorum in regno Poloniae quae fuit in Colloquio Thoruniensi oblata, cap. 4. sect. 2. part. 10. Falso, inquiunt, accusamur, quasi praecepta Christi nullomodo a fidelibus servari posse statuamus: Cum tamen illa, non quidem propriis viribus, sed per gratiam spiritus sancti, non tantum servari posse, sed etiam omnino servari ab omnibus debere doceamus. Et quidem non voto tantum, aut proposito inefficaci, sed etiam ipso opere, & vero, sincero, ac totius vitae perseveranti studio. Quamvis in hac vita non ita perfecte a quoquam serventur, aut servari possint, ut legi Dei satisfaciamus, eamque per omnia impleamus; sed ut simul & imperfectionis & infirmitatis propriae sensu, variorum lapsuum & delictorum veniam quotidie a Deo petere opus habeamus. Et eandem quoque doctrinam aliis verbis exprimit confessio Anglicana anni M.DC.XLV. c. 19. paragr. 7. ubi dicit spiritum Christi voluntatem hominis ita domare & flectere, ut alacriter ac cum voluptate faciat, id quod requirit Dei voluntas, in lege ejus revelata.