The Sacraments are a visible Word spoken for us, given to us...

When we are baptized, when we eat the Lord's body, when we are absolved, our heart must be firmly assured that God truly forgives us for Christ's sake.  At the same time, by the Word and by the rite, God moves hearts to believe and conceive faith, just as Paul says, "Faith comes by hearing" (Rom. 10:17).  But just as the Word enters the ear in order to strike our heart, so the rite itself strikes the eye, in order to move the heart.  The effect of the Word and the rite are the same.  It has been well said by Agustine that a Sacrament is a visible Word, because the rite is received by the eyes and is, as it were, a picture of the Word, illustrating the same thing as the Word.  The result of both is the same.
~BOC, AP, XII (VII), 4-6

Our shelter and protection rest in prayer...

We need to know this: all our shelter and protection rest in prayer alone. For we are far too weak to deal with the devil and all his power and followers who set themselves against us. They might easily crush us under their feet. Therefore, we must consider and take up those weapons with which Christians must be armed in order to stand against the devil.
~BOC, LC, III, 30

Christ is always our Mediator with God...

In the third place, Christ does not stop being our Mediator after we have been renewed. They err who imagine that He has merited only a first grace, and that, afterward, we please God and merit eternal life by our fulfilling of the Law.
~BOC, AP, V (III), 41

We go precisely because of our unworthiness...

Such people must learn that it is the hightest art to know that our Sacrament [the Lord's Supper] does not depend on our worthiness. We are not baptized because we are worthy and holy. Nor do we go to Confession because we are pure and without sin. On the contrary, we go because we are poor, miserable people. We go exactly because we are unworthy.
 ~BOC, LC, V, 65

Through faith alone...

Since we receive forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit through faith alone, faith alone justifies. For those reconciled are counted as righteous and as God's children. This is not because of their own purity, but through mercy for Christ's sake, provided only that they receive this mercy through faith. So Scripture testifies that by faith we are accounted righteous.
~BOC, AP, IV(II), 86

God's chief works among people...

God's two chief works among people are these:  to terrify; to justify and make alive those who have been terrified.  Into these two works all Scripture has been distributed.  The one part is the Law, which shows, reproves, and condemns sins.  The other part is the Gospel, that is, the promise of grace bestowed in Christ.  This promise is constantly repeated in the whole of Scripture, first having been delivered to Adam, afterward, to the patriarchs. Then, it was still more clearly proclaimed by the prophets.  Lastly, it was preached and set forth among the Jewish people by Christ and then spread out over the entire world by the apostles.  All the saints were justified through faith in this promise, and not by their own attrition or contrition.
~BOC, AP, XII (V), 53-54

God faithfully provides all that His creation needs...

You see, in this way, God wishes to show us how He cares for us in all our need and faithfully provides for us also for our earthly support. He abundantly grants and preserves these things, even for the wicked and rogues. Yet, He wishes that we pray for these goods in order that we may recognize that we receive them from His hand and may feel His fatherly goodness toward us in them.
~BOC, LC, III, 82-83

There is but one Christ...

There is one Christ, true God and true man, who was born of the Virgin Mary, truly suffered, was crucified, died, and was buried. He did this to reconcile the Father to us and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of mankind. He descended into hell and truly rose again on the third day.
~BOC, AC, III, 2-4

We do not assign spiritual matters to free will...

Although we admit that free will has the freedom and power to perform the supreme works of the Law, we do not assign spiritual matters to free will. These are to truly fear God, believe God, be confident and hold that He care for us, hears us, and forgives us.  These are the true works of the First Table, which the heart cannot produce without the Holy Spirit, as Paul says, "The natural person [namely, a person using only natural strength] does not accept the things of the Spirit of God" (I Corinthians 2:14).  People can determine this if they consider what their hearts believe about God's will, whether they are truly confident God cares for and hears them. Even the saints find keeping this faith difficult (which is not possible in believers). But, as we have said before, it begins when terrified hearts hear the Gospel and receive comfort.
~BOC, AP, XVIII, 73-74

Law brings despair, but the Gospel brings consolation and forgiveness...

Whenever the Law alone exercises its office...there is nothing but death and hell, and one must despair, as Saul and Judas did. St. Paul says, through sin the Law kills. (See Romans 7:10.) On the other hand, the Gospel brings consolation and forgiveness. It does so not just in one way, but through the Word and Sacraments and the like, as we will discuss later. As Psalm 130:7 says against the dreadful captivity of sin, "with the Lord is plentiful redemption."
~BOC, SA, III, III, 7-8

God's Word is a true sanctuary...

God's Word is the sanctuary above all sanctuaries.
~BOC, LC, I, 91

The Gospel is incompatible with the teaching of merited grace...

The Gospel compels us to insist on the doctrine of grace and the righteousness of faith in the churches.  This cannot be understood if people think that they merit grace by observances of their own choice.
~BOC, AC, XXVI, 20

Forgiveness rests not on our sake...

Here we must know that this faith should be confident that God freely forgives us for Christ's sake, for the sake of His own promise, not for the sake of our works, contrition, confession, or satisfaction.
~BOC, AP, XII (VI), 95

The Holy Spirit carries on His Work without ceasing...

God's grace is secured through Christ, and sanctification is wrought by the Holy Spirit through God's Word in the unity of the Christian Church. Yet because of our flesh, which we bear with us, we are never without sin.   Everything, therefore, in the Christian Church is ordered toward this goal: we shall daily receive in the Church nothing but the forgiveness of sin through the Word and signs, to comfort and encourage our consciences as long as we live here. So even though we have sins, the grace of the Holy Spirit does not allow them to harm us.  For we are in the Christian Church, where there is nothing but continuous, uninterrupted forgiveness of sins....For we have already received creation. Redemption, too, is finished. But the Holy Spirit carries on His work without ceasing to the Last Day.
~BOC, LC,  II, 54-55,61

The power of the Living Word...

It helps to be occupied with God's Word, to speak it, and meditate on it, just as the first Psalm declares people blessed who meditate on God's Law day and night.  Certainly you will not release a stronger incense or other repellent against the devil than to be engaged by God's commandments and words, and speak, sing, or think them. For this is indeed the true "holy water" and "holy sign" from which the devil runs and by which he may be driven away.
~BOC, LC, LP, 10

Objective Grace brings the greatest consolation to anxious souls...

Spiritually inexperienced people despise this teaching [objective grace]. However, God-fearing and anxious consciences find by experience that it brings the greatest consolation. Consciences cannot be set at rest through any works, but only by faith, when they take the sure ground that for Christ's sake they have a gracious God.
~BOC, AC, XX, 15-16

The power, work, profit, fruit and purpose of Baptism...

Therefore, state it most simply this way:  The power, work, profit, fruit, and purpose of Baptism is this--to save.  For no one is baptized in order that he may become a prince, but, as the words say, that he "be saved."  We know that to be saved is nothing other than to be delivered from sin, death, and the devil.  It means to enter into Christ's kingdom and to live forever.
~BOC, LC, IV, 24-25

Though we still battle flesh, the entire person and works is declared righteous and holy through faith...

I do not know how to change in the least what I have previously and constantly taught about justification. Namely, that through faith, as St. Peter says, we have a new and clean heart, and God will and does account us entirely righteous and holy for the sake of Christ, our Mediator. Although sin in the flesh has not yet been completely removed or become dead yet He will not punish or remember it....The entire individual, both his person and his works, is declared to be righteous and holy from pure grace and mercy, shed upon us and spread over us in Christ.
~BOC, SA, III, XIII, 1-2

The Scriptures will never lie to you...

Therefore, if you cannot discern this, at least believe the Scriptures. They will not lie to you, and they know your flesh better than you yourself.
~BOC, LC, V, 76