<P> For Lutherans, justification provides the power by which Christians can grow in holiness . Such improvement comes about in the believer only after he has become a new creation in Christ . This improvement is not completed in this life: Christians are always "saint and sinner at the same time" (simul iustus et peccator)--saints because they are holy in God's eyes, for Christ's sake, and do works that please him; sinners because they continue to sin until death . </P> <P> John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was heavily influenced by the thought of Dutch Reformed theologian Jacob Arminius and Hugo Grotius' governmental theory of the atonement . Hence, he held that God's work in us consisted of prevenient grace, which undoes the effects of sin sufficiently that we may then freely choose to believe . An individual's act of faith then results in becoming part of the body of Christ, which allows one to appropriate Christ's atonement for oneself, erasing the guilt of sin . According to the Articles of Religion in the Book of Discipline of the Methodist Church: </P> <P> We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings . Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort . </P> <P> However, once the individual has been so justified, one must then continue in the new life given; if one fails to persevere in the faith and in fact falls away from God in total unbelief, the attachment to Christ--and with it, justification--may be lost . </P>

Who spoke about the doctrine of justification by faith