Gerhard and Walther

Is it not a wrong action for you to think that you, with your haughty pride, hope to be allowed entrance into heaven even though the haughtily proud Lucifer was tossed out of heaven on account of pride? Christ Jesus, the door to the heavenly sheep stall, is low. If you wish to enter into it, you must bow yourself down and humble yourself, otherwise you will strike yourself on your head and never get in there, as Augustine says in Tract. 45 on John.—Johann Gerhard, Schola Pietatis III:218.

They [Christians] are righteous before God only because they believe in Christ. Without faith, their sins would damn them just as readily as the sins of others condemn them. A Christian may progress only so far in sanctification during this life; he must still appear daily as a poor beggar before God.—C. F. W. Walther, God Grant It!, p. 540.