Gerhard and Walther

There is nothing more powerful to lighten the wearisome load of this life’s labors than to praise and extol God. For thereby the heart of man is revived, it is drawn away from earthly things and directed to God—the Highest Good. Whoever steadfastly praises and extols God the Lord lives with his mind in heaven.—Johann Gerhard, Schola Pietatis III:354,5.

What he [the publican] was really saying was that he took refuge, not in God’s goodness and grace, but in His grace of the atonement through the work of the Savior. That is the firm foundation upon which justification rests.—C. F. W. Walther, God Grant It!, p. 657.