On the Bondage of the Will (De servo arbitrio)

p Quo tandem perveniat.'] The contrast is between that direct • going to God of the truly humbled sinner ; and the circuitous, procrastinative, self- centered expectations of the man who does not yet know the whole of his lostness and impotency. i Nihil eligitl] In direct contrast with the * sibi praesumit, sperat, optat* of the former sentence ; he does not desire or expect any particular combination of time and place, in which he may perform some great work for himself; but lies passive in the hands of God, leaving it to God even to choose for him. The expression reminds us of St. Paul's language, under other circumstances, which was probably in Luther's mind; "yet what I shall choose I wot not." (Phil. i. 22.) godly, being humbled, may come to a real know- SC.XXin. ledge1' of the promise of grace, may call upon the name of the Lord, and may receive its fulfilment. The second reason for this preaching is, that, faith being conversant about things which do not appear ; to have place for faith, all the things believed mast be hidden things. Now, things are never hidden further from us, than when the contrary to them is set before us by sense and experience. Thus God, whilst he makes us alive, does it by killing us; whilst he justifies us, does it by making us guilty ; whilst he lifts us up to heaven, does it by plunging us into hell. As saith the Scripture, " The Lord killeth, and maketh alive ; he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up :" (1 Sam. ii. 6.) of which, this is not the place to discourse at large. Those, who have seen our books, are hackneyed in these topics. Thus He hides his eternal mercy and pity under eternal wrath ; his righteousness under iniquity.

This is the highest degree of faith, to believe that He is merciful, who saves so few, and condemns so many; to believe Him just, who, of his own will, makes us necessary objects of damnation ; s thus seeming, according to Erasmus's account, to be delighted with the torments of the wretched, and to deserve hatred, rather than love. If then, I could, by any means, comprehend how this God is pitiful and just, who shews so great wrath and injustice, there would be no need of faith ; but now, since this cannot be comprehended, space is given for the exercise of faith, whilst these things are preached and published ; r Cognoscant.'] e Nosco, vel bene nosco ' ; ' to know a person, or thing, not known before j' opposed to ' agnosco.' s Necessarib damnabiles.~] "We were so created, have been so generated and brought out into manifest existence,, are so constituted and so situated, that we cannot choose but be just objects of God's eternal damnation. This necessity is not blind Fate, but arises out of the appointments, arrangements, and operations of God's counselled will. part i. even as the faith of life is exercised in death/

whilst God is in the very act of killing us. Enough for the present, in a preface. By this proceeding of theirs, those who assert and defend these paradoxes, do, in fact, better provide against the impiety of the multitude, than you do, by your counsel of silence and abstinence; which, after all, avails nothing. For, if you either believe, or suspect that they are true (being, as they are, paradoxes of no small moment), through that insatiable desire which men have for scrutinizing secret things (then, most of all, when most of all we wish to conceal them), you will cause men to have a much greater desire for learning whether these paradoxes be true, by publishing this caution of yours ; you will have set them on fire, no doubt, by your eagerness. Thus it will be found, that none of us has ever yet given such occasion to the promulgation of these things, as you have done by this devout and vehement admonition. You would have acted more prudently, in quite holding your tongue about shunning these paradoxes, if you meant to obtain your wish. All is over now : since you do not absolutely deny that they are true, they can-

t Fides vit(E.~] Luther has some allusion possibly to Job.xiii.15. e! Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." — * Faith of eternal life j' the belief that he shall possess that life ; is exercised by the dying man, in the moment when God is killing him. ' What ! He give thee life, who is now killing thee V Yes ; so faith speaks. — Even so, these apparent contradictions to the justice and other perfections of God, kill faith ; but it is exercised in the midst of this death. A fine thought ! But it will be seen elsewhere, as I trust, that Luther misconceives and overstates this difficulty j through not seeing far enough into the counsel and actings of God. There is manifestly no injustice in the divine procedure ; when that procedure is viewed in its real nature and circumstances, as revealed. Nor are we without a manifested end, which the spiritual mind entirely approves and rejoices in, for that severity, which is so hateful to carnal man. But it requires great depth, a^Well as distinctness of vision, so to see, as to be verily and indeed satisfied with this mystery of God, by which He is making himself known.

not hereafter be concealed, but will draw every sc.xxiv. body to the investigation of them, by the sus picion that they are true.* Either deny, therefore, that they are true ; or keep silence first yourself, if you mean that others should be silent. With respect to the other paradox, that c what- Jhe Paiaever we do is done by mere necessity, and not by « an human Freewill ;' let us look a little into it here, that we works are may forbid its being called most pernicious. What I explained say at present is, when it shall have been shewn and dethat our salvation is placed beyond the reach of fendedour own power and wisdom, depending upon the work of God only (which I hope to prove fully, hereafter, in the body of my discourse), will it not clearly follow, that 'whilst God is not present as a worker in us, every thing is evil which we do ; and that we do necessarily those things which are of no profit to our own salvation V For, if it is not we> but only God, that works salvation in us; we do nothing that is profitable to our salvation, whether we will or no, before he works in us. When I say necessarily, I do not mean by compulsion ; but, as it is said, by a necessity of immutability, not of compulsion : that is, when a man is destitute of the Spirit of God, he does not work evil against his will, through a violence put upon him;

as if some one should seize him by the throat, and twist him round ; just as a thief or highwayman is carried, against his will, to the gallows ; but he works it of his own accord, and with a willing will. But then he cannot, by his own strength, lay aside, restrain, or change this good pleasure, or will to act ; but. he goes on willing and liking : and, even if he should be compelled from without to do something else by force, still his will remains averse within him, and he is angry with the person who compels or resists him.

u Suspicione veritatis.'] Interdum suspicio est ' opinio,' ' cogitatio,' ' conjectural f levis cognitio :' a sort of i surmise' that they may be true. PART I. Now, he would not be angry, if his mind were changed, and he were following the force which acts upon him willingly. This is what I at present call c a necessity of immutability ' ; that is, the will cannot change itself and turn another way, but is rather provoked the more to will, by being resisted : as is proved by its indignation. This would not be, if the will were free, or possessed Freewill. Appeal to experience. How impracticable those persons are, who cleave to any thing with affection. If these persons cease to cleave, they so cease through violence, or through the greater advantage which they are to derive from something else ; they never cease to cleave, but by constraint : whereas, if they have no affection for the thing, they suffer, what may, to go forwards and be done. So, if, on the other hand, God work in us, the will which has been changed and softly whispered to by the Spirit of God, again wills and acts according to its own sheer lust, proneness, and selfaccord, not compelledly; so that it cannot be changed into another sort of will by any opposite excitements, nor overcome or compelled, even by the gates of hell ; but goes on willing and liking and loving good, just as it before willed and liked and loved evil.

For, experience again proves, how invincible and constant holy men are, whilst they are goaded on by force to other objects ; insomuch, that they are from thence the more provoked to will : just as fire is inflamed, by the wind, rather than extinguished ! So that, neither in this case is there any freedom in the will to turn itself another way, or will something else, as the free will might choose ; so long as the Spirit and God's grace remain in the man.

In short, if we be under the power of the G od of this world, being destitute of the work and Spirit of the true God, we are held captive by him at his will ; as Paul says (2 Tim. ii. 26.) ; so that sc.xxiv. we cannot will any thing but what he wills. For he is himself that strong man armed, who so keepeth his palace that those are in peace whom he possesses ; lest they should stir up any commotion or thought against him. Otherwise, the kingdom of Satan, being divided against itself, could not stand ; whereas Christ affirms that it does stand. And this will of his we do willingly and cordially, agreeably to the nature of our will ,* which, if it were compelled, would not be a Will : for compulsion is, if I may so speak, more properly Non-ivilL* But, if a stronger than he come upon him, and, having conquered him, carry us off' as a spoil; then, again, we become servants and captives through His spirit (which, however, is royal liberty), to will and do of our own lust, just what He himself wills. Thus, the human will is placed, as a sort of packhorse, in the midst of two contending parties. If God hath mounted, it wills and goes whither God pleases; as the Psalmist says, " I am become as a beast of burden, and I am ever with thee."y (Psa. ixxiii. 22, 23.) If Satan hath mounted, it wills and goes whither Satan wills. Nor is it in its own choice, to which of the two riders it shall run, or to seek its rider; but the riders themselves contend for the acquisition and possession of it.z

x Xohuitas.'] ' The negation of will;' a state supposed, which is inconsistent with the very existence of the faculty : yet this is what the opponents of ' necessity ' would charge its assertors with maintaining ; instead of that constrained but freely-acted obedience, which is essential to the reality of God's being God, and man his moral creature. y Our authorized version gives another turn to this passage, by dividing the verses differently. But the original text is, " I am foolish, and I did not know that I was behemoth before thee : and I am always with thee, thou holdest in thy hand my right hand." z Luther does not really mean what his words might seem to imply, that God and Satan are co-equal rivals for the throne of Erasmus convicted by his own concession : folly and madness of man's claiming Freewill. What if I shall have proved from your own words, in which you assert Freewill, that there is no such thing as Freewill * so as to convict you of unwarily denying the conclusion which you endeavour, with so much wariness, to establish ? Verily, if I do not succeed in this, I swear to revoke all which I have written against you, from the beginning to the end of this book; and to confirm all which your Diatribe either asserts or brings into question against me.a

You represent the power of the free will as something very diminutive, and what is altogether inefficacious without the grace of God. Do not you acknowledge this ? I ask and demand, then, if the grace of God be wanting, or be man's will. Hereafter, it will be found, that lie firmly and explicitly maintains the universal and minute sovereignty of God, as the doer of all things. His object here is to shew the governance under which man's will is ; that it is under the power and control of the devil, unless and until the HolyGhost assume the empire of it : when it is still a subject, though the subject of another, and that a freedom-giving master. — The truth, however, is, that God has never given Freewill (if by Freewill is meant an uncontrolled will) to any creature. Man, in his creation state, had the power of choosing, and refusing, as he has now j and the difference between his then state and his now state, consisted in his knowing nothing but good ; and, till the moment of trial, having no temptation to choose any thing but good. When that temptation was, for the first time, presented to him, we know how he met it ; and the result was a corrupted faculty, which Satan rides as his packhorse. But both his seat and his riding are of the gift, and according to the will, of God ; even as his dispossession is, when, as and in whom God wills ; not a moment sooner, or later. Yet all this agency of God in no wise contradicts the reality of a will in man ; God's universal and minute government consisting in his setting, or rather procuring to be set, before this faculty, such considerations as shall lead the freeagent possessor of it to choose just what God would have him choose.

a Contra me turn asserit, turn qucerit.'] Much of Erasmus's argument consisted of dubitative remark ; hinting a fault or objection, rather than boldly stating it j and proposing questions, rather than affirming certainties. separated from this little something of power; sc.xxv. what will it do by itself? b It is inefficacious, you ' say, and does nothing that is good. Then it will not do what God or his grace would have to be done (for we suppose here, that the grace of God is in a state of separation from it), and what the grace of God doeth not, is not good. It follows, therefore, that the free wiil,c without the grace of God, is absolutely not free, but is immutably the captive and slave of evil; since it cannot, of itself, turn to good. Let but this be allowed, and I will give you leave to make the power of the free will not only that small something, but the power of an angel ; a power, if you can, that is truly divine. Still, if you shall add this unhappy appendage, that it is inefficacious without the grace of God, you will instantly take away all power from it. — What is an inefficacious power, but no power at all ?

To say, then, that the will is free, and has power, but that its power is inefficacious, is what the Sophists call c an opposite in the adjunct f as if you should say, the will is free, but it is not free. It is like saying, fire is cold, and earth is hot. Let fire possess even an infernal degree of heat; if it be neither warm nor burn, but be cold and make cold, I will not call it fire, much less hot — unless you choose to consider it as a painting or engraving of a fire. If, however, we should declare Freewill to be that power, wrhich renders b Quid ipsa faciei .] This question is no less than the deathblow to Freewill, how modest soever may be the pretensions made for her. A false candour and a ruinous forbearance say, why attempt to separate what run so closely and so harmoniously together, God's grace and man's exertion r Goodwill to man and zeal for God demand the separation : thus only can man be made to know himself ; thus only can God's proper praise be knowingly and unfeignedlv rendered to him. c See above, Sect. ix. note d. Lib. arb. ' The power of willing,' thus asserted to be free. Vis lib. arb. ( The power of this power, &c. &c.' ' Freewill.'

part i. man a fit substance to be seized by the Spirit and imbued with the grace of God, as a being created to eternal life, or eternal death ; we should speak properly. For we also confess this power (that is, this fitness) in the will ; or, as the Sophists speak, this disposable quality and passive adaptedness ; which everybody knows to be not implanted in the trees and in the beasts : for God hath not created heaven for geese and ganders ; as it is said.d It stands fixed, even by your own testimony, therefore, that we do all things by necessity, and nothing by Freewill; so long as the power of the free will is nothing, and neither does nor can do good, in the absence of grace. Unless you, by a new use of terms, should choose to mean c completion' by ' efficacy;' intimating, that Freewill can begin and can will a good work, though not complete it ; which I do not believe. But more of this hereafter. It follows, from what has been said, that Freewill is a title which belongs altogether to God; and cannot join with any other being, save the Divine Majesty only. For that Divine Majesty, as the Psalmist sings, can and does effect all that He wills in heaven and in earth. (Psa. cxxxv. 6.) But if this title be ascribed to men, you might just as well ascribe divinity itself to them ; a sacrilege which none can exceed. So that, it was the duty of theologians to abstain from this word, when

d It is necessary to mark with precision the amount of this concession. Man has a rational will, (not that his reason is seated in his will ; it is a distinct faculty ; and we should say more correctly, man has an understanding as well as a will) which brutes have not ; and through the means of which he may become the subject of spiritual influences. There is a spirit in man ; and this spirit may be renewed and invigorated by the Holy Ghost, so as to discern spiritual objects, and to perform spiritual acts. But how does this affect the reality of the natural blindness and impotency of the rational will ? It presupposes that reality. they would speak of human power, and to leave it sc. xxv. for God only; and, having done this, to remove the ' same from out of the mouth and discourse of men, claiming; it as a sacred and venerable title for their God.e Nay, if they must by all means ascribe some power to man, they should teach that it be called by some other name than c Freewill;' especially, when as we all see and know, the common people are miserably seduced and beguiled by this term ; hearing in it, and conceiving from it, a something: very far different from what theologians entertain in their minds, and affirm. For ' Freewill' is too magnificent, extensive, and copious a term;

by which the common people suppose (as both the force and the nature of the word require) that a power is meant, which can turn itself freely to either side, and is of such extent as not to yield or be subjected to any one. Did they know that the fact is otherwise, and that scarcely a very small particle of a little spark is signified by it, and that this very small particle is quite inefficacious by itself; nay, the captive and slave of the devil ; it would be strange if they did not stone us, as mockers and deceivers, for uttering a sound so very far different from our meaning : and this too, when it is not even a settled and agreed thing amongst us yet, what we really do mean ! For " he who speaks deceitfully/'' says the wTise man, u is detestable ;" f especially, if he do so in matters of piety, where eternal salvation is at stake.

Seeing, then, that we have lost the substance e Nomen.'] He does not mean that God should be called by this name ; but that it is a property, which should be to him as a name ; c what separates the individual, in the recognition of others, frorn all that resemble him.' f Odibilis.~] I do not find any words like these, either in the Canonical Scriptures, or in the Apocrypha. Some have supposed Luther to refer to Eccle. xxxvii. 3. " O wicked imagination, whence earnest thou in to cover earth with deceit ?" which is expressed by so glorious a name, or rather have never possessed it (the Pelagians, indeed, would have it that we do ; beguiled, as you are, by this word) ; why do we so obstinately retain an empty name, to the mocking and endangering of the common people which believe ? It is just the same sort of wisdom, as that by which kings and princes either retain, or claim and vaunt themselves to possess, empty titles of kingdoms and countries ; when they are almost beggars all the while, and are as far as possible from possessing those kingdoms and countries. This, however, is a folly that may be borne ; since they neither deceive nor beguile any one, but feed themselves on vanity, to no profit at all. But in the case before us, the soul-danger and the deception are most injurious.

Who would not laugh at, or rather hate, that unseasonable innovator in the use of words, who, contrary to all common usage, should endeavour to introduce such a mode of speaking as to call a beggar rich; not for having any money of his own, but because some king might perchance give him his ? Especially, if he should do this, as though he were in earnest ; without any figure of speech, such as antiphrasis or irony. So, if he should call one that is sick unto death a man in perfect health ; because some other person, who is in health, might possibly make him whole, like himself. So, if he should call a most illiterate idiot a very learned man; because some other person might possibly give him letters. It is just the same sort of thing which is said here — ' man has Freewill': yes, forsooth : if God should give him His. By such an abuse of speech, any man might boast himself of any thing : as for instance, that he is Lord of heaven and earth ; that is, if God would but give it him. Such, however, is not the language of theologians, but of stage-players and

swaggerers.* Our words ought to be plain, pure, sc.xxv. and sober :h what Paul calls " sound and irre • prehensible." (Tit. ii. 7, 8.) If, then, we be not willing to give up the term altogether, which would be the safest expedient, and most consistent with piety ; still, let us teach men to keep good faith in using it only within certain limits; by which Freewill shall be conceded to man, only with respect to such substances as are inferior to himself, and not to those which are his superiors. In other words, let him know that he has, with regard to his faculties and possessions, a right of using them — of doing, and of forbearing to do — according to his own free will ; although this very right be also controlled by God's alone free will, wheresoever he sees fit to interpose. But in his actings towards God, in things pertaining to salvation or damnation, he has no free will, but is the captive, the subject, and the servant, either of the will of God, or of the will of Satan.1 8 Quadruplatorum.'] This name was applied, under the Roman law, to ' public informers/ who gained a fourth part of the accused's goods, or of the fine imposed upon him : or, as others say, because they accused persons, who, upon conviction, used to be condemned to pay fourfold; as those guilty of illegal usury, gaming, or the like.

But chiefly mercenary and false accusers, or litigants, were called by this name ; and also those judges who, making themselves parties in a cause, decided in their own favour. Seneca calls those who, for small services, sought great returns, ' quadruplatores beneficiorum suorumj' as overrating and exaggerating them. — Luther, however, may possibly have no allusion to these customs, but use the term, according to its essential meaning, for ' a bouncer' or ' exaggerator ;' insinuating, that Erasmus's statements were of this kind. But his uniting it with Histrionum leads us rather to some notorious class, or community of persons.

h Propria, pura, sobria.'] Prop. ' plain,' as opposed to°f figurative y pur. f simple,' as opposed to ' ornamented f sobr. 'temperate,' as opposed to ' extravagant.' 1 Luther's distinction here is neither profitable, nor just, nor safe : unprofitable, because the amount of the exception is small, and hard to be defined ; unjust, because God does, in fact, interpose always — " He worketh ali things after the coun- his review of Erasmus's part i. I have said thus much on the chapters of your Preface, which even in themselves contain almost the whole of our matter ; more of it, I might say, than the body of the book which follows. But the concludes sum of these is what might be dispatched by this short dilemma. Your preface complains either of Pre- the words of God, or of the words of man : if, of the face, by re- words of man, it is all written in vain, and I have to adfiem^ no concern with it ; if, of the words of God, it is ma, and altogether profane. So that, it would have been Sortwork more profitable to make this our question ; are the of some of words, about which we dispute, God's words or ins sharp man^s words ? But, perhaps the Proem which gs* follows, and the disputation itself, will discuss this question.

What you repeat in the conclusion of your preface, does not at all disturb me : as 'that you should call my dogmas fables, and useless ;' ' that you should say, that we ought rather, after the example of Paul, to preach Christ crucified ;' 'that wisdom must be taught amongst them that are perfect;' ' that Scripture has its language variously attempered to the state of the hearers/ which makes you think, that it is left to the prudence and charity of the teacher, to preach what he may deem suitable to his neighbour. All this is absurdity and ignorance ; I also preach nothing but Jesus crucified : but " Christ crucified" brings all these things along with it; and brings, moreover, that very wisdom amongst them that are perfect : since there is no other wisdom to be taught amongst Christians, than that which is hidden in a mystery and belongs to the sel of his own will." " Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father j" " He is all (things) in all (things)." Unsafe; because, if Freewill be admitted any .where, why not every where ? who will yield to our authority, when we say, ' it is here, but it is not there?" The truth is, man is a freeagent, though not a free-wilier, in spiritual things 3 and he is no more in temporal things, and in his dealings with the inferior creatures. (See Sect. xxiv. note z.)

perfect ; not to children/ of a Jewish and legal people, which glory in works without faith. This is Paul's meaning in 1 Cor. ii. unless you would have ' the preaching of Christ crucified 9 to mean no more than the sounding out of these letters, e Christ was crucified/ As to those expressions, ' God is angry/ c hath fury/ c hateth/ c grieveth/ ' pitieth/ ' repenteth;' when we know that none of these things happeneth to God ; You are looking for a knot in a bulrush.1 These expressions do not make Scripture obscure, or such as must be modulated according to the varieties of the hearer; except that some people are fond of making obscurities where there are none. These are matters of grammar : the sentiment is expressed in figurative words; but those, such as even schoolboys understand. However, we are talking about doctrines, not about figures of speech, in this cause of ours. k Pueros.~\ Piter, opposed to perfectos ; ev to?s reXeiocr The men ' of full age', opposed to babes. (1 Cor. ii. 6.) 1 Nodus in scirpo quaritur."] A proverb for stumbling upon plain ground. Canonical Scriptures to be the standard of appeal. Human authority all against Luther — admitted — but depreciated.

Now, therefore, when about to enter upon your disputation, you promise to plead the Canonical Scriptures only, since Luther does not hold himself bound by the authority of any other writer. I am satisfied, and accept your promise : albeit, you do not make this promise on the ground of judging those other writers unprofitable to the cause, but to spare yourself useless labour; for you do not quite approve this audacity of mine, or whatever else the principle, by which I regulate myself in this instance, must be called. You are not a little moved, forsooth, by so numerous a series of the most learned men, who have been approved by the common consent of so many ages : amongst whom, are to be found men of the greatest skill in sacred literature, some of the most holy of our Martyrs, and many celebrated for their miracles. Add to these a number of more modern theologians ; so many Universities, Councils, Bishops, Pontiffs. In short, on the one side stands erudition, genius, numbers, grandeur, high rank, fortitude, sanctification, miracles, and what not ? But on my side, only Wickliff and one other, Laurentius Valla (howbeit Augustine also, whom you pass over, is altogether with me); whose weight is nothing, in comparison with the former.

There remains none but Luther — a private man, sect. i. a man of yesterday — and his friends : who have neither so much learning, nor so much genius ; no numbers, no grandeur, no sanctification, no miracles— they cannot even heal a lame horse. They make a parade of Scripture; which they nevertheless consider to be equivocal/ as well as the opposite party. They boast of the Spirit also ; but they give no signs of possessing it. — And a great many other particulars ; which you could specify, if you pleased.b — There is nothing on our side, therefore, but what the wolf acknowledged in the devoured nightingale ; ' You are a voice/ said he, c and nothing else/ ' They talk/ you say; ' and, for this only, expect to be believed/ I confess, my Erasmus, that you are not without good reason moved by all these things. I was so much affected by them myself for more than ten years, that I think no other person was ever equally harassed by such conflicts : and it was utterly incredible to me, that this Troy of mine, which, for so long a time, and during so many wars, had proved itself to be invincible, could ever be taken. Nay, I call God for a record upon my soul, that I should have continued in my opinion, and should, to this day, be still impressed with the same feelings, if it were not that the goadings of my own conscience, and the evidence of facts, constrain me to judge differently. You can have no difficulty in conceiving, that, although my heart be not a heart of stone, yet if it were one, it might have melted in the struggle and collision with such waves and tides as I brought upon myself, by daring to do an act,

a Quam tamen dubiam habent.~\ The pretended ambiguity of Scripture is a point on which Erasmus laid great stress, and which Luther, hereafter, most powerfully and satisfactorily repels. b A vaunting insinuation expressed in the words of iEneas (Mn. iv. 333, 334) ; by which Erasmus would lead his reader to understand, that he had a great deal still behind. part II. which would, as I perceived, cause all the autho- rity of these persons whom you have recounted, to come down, with all the violence of a deluge, upon my own head.0 But this is not the place for me to construct a history of my life, or of my works ; nor have I taken this book in hand with the design of commending myself, but that I might extol the grace of God. What sort of a man I am, and with what spirit and design I have been hurried into these transactions, I commit d to that Being, who knows that all these things have been effected, not by my own Freewill, but by His : howbeit, even the world itself ought to have become sensible of this, long ago. It is evidently a very invidious situation into which you throw me, by this exordium of yours : from which it is not easy for me to extricate myself, without trumpeting my own praises, and censuring so many of the Fathers. But I shall be short. In erudition, genius, numbers, authority, and every thing else, I allow the cause to be tried at your judgment-seat, and acknowledge myself the inferior.6

c Luther claims respect, here, for three properties of his mind and conduct ; conscientiousness, scrupulous investigation of truth, and full consciousnesss of the evil he was encountering. Not only was his light poured in very gradually, and admitted very cautiously, but, from first to last, he would have been often glad to hold his tongue. When he spoke, or wrote, it was because God's word was in his heart as a burning fire shut up in his bones, and he was weary with forbearing, and could not stay. (Jer. xx. 9.) d Commendo.'] Properly, to c commit as a deposit into the hands of a trustee.' I leave my character and my conduct, in these particulars, with my God. e Luther considers himself as arrayed, in opposition to the Fathers, before the judgment-seat of Erasmus. His defence must consist of self-praise and abuse of the Fathers. He declines making such a defence, and cuts the matter short by acknowledging his inferiority ; and, that in all the points of competition which Erasmus had introduced. — Dr. Milner understands him to reserve three ; Viz. the Spirit, miracles, sanctification. But this does not appear to be the fair construction and import of the original text. If I collect the

But if I should turn round npon my judge, and SECT. I. propose these three questions to you, what is the manifestation of the Spirit ? what are Miracles? what is Sanctification ? f you would be sense aright, he makes two concessions: etiam ie judice ; '1 will allow the cause to be tried even at your judgment-seat ;' omnibus aliis ; c I reserve not a single point of superiority for myself.' (Did Luther indeed mean^to contest the palm on any of these three grounds of excellency?) — But then he abates the force of his concessions, by remarking, with respect to those three distinctions which alone are of any value in the number and variety claimed for his adversaries, that, in the first place, Erasmus could not define them ; and, in the next, he could not prove concerning any individual of his vaunted host, that he possessed them. (See Miln. Ecclesi. Hist. vol. iv. part ii. p. S63.) It may be well, just to notice the order, in which Luther hence proceeds, in his animadversions upon Erasmus's Proem. 1. You cannot prove that they possessed these properties. 2. If they had them, they did not come at them by Freewill.

3. Show ye the same. 4. At least define the power. 5. How absurd your conduct with respect to the Fathers. 6. Some desultory objections — such as, c strange that God should have tolerated such errors in his church'; ' Scripture is not clear' — met and repelled. 7« Erasmus reduced to a dilemma. f By ' manifestation of the Spirit,' Luther (with reference to Erasmus's taunt, e quem nusquam ostendunt') means, ' how men are to prove that they have the Spirit dwelling and walking in them.' By f miracles', how the reality or falsehood of affirmed miracles is to be proved. By c sanctification', the state of a saint ; that is, of one effectually called by the Holy Ghost : this effectual calling, or separation of the Spirit, being that act by which the eternally separated of the Father (Jude ver. 1.) are drawn into a realized and recognised union with the separated one, even the Lord Jesus Christ ; in whom (Heb. ii. 11.), according to eternal purpose and covenant, they are separated to God. So that ' separation from and unto' constitutes the essence of sanctification ; into which the Scripture use of the term is every where resolvable : not a gradual work, the result of repeated actions of the Spirit upon the substance of the natural soul, as human authors fondly teach -, but one complete and final operation, by which the natural soul (Y^x^) *s made a spiritual soul (jvevfxa) j as holy, with respect to its own substance, as it ever will be in eternity.

(See 1 Pet. i. 2, 22, 23. 2 Thess. ii. 13. John vi. 37, 44, 63, 64. See also the kXtjto?* 07/0^9, ' called to be saints,' of the epistolary inscriptions.) Luther very properly distinguishes this ' sanctimonia,' ' sanctum esse vel fuisse', from the ' habere spiritum j' that is, from the presence of the Holy Ghost with, and his consequent actings in and by, the renewed Spirit.

The excellencies of the Fathers were not of or for Freewill. found too inexpert and too ignorant (so far as I know you from your letters and from your books) to answer me one syllable. Or, if I should go on, and demand of you, which of all these heroes, of whom you make your boast, you could certainly show to have been, or to be sanctified, or to have had the Spirit, or to have displayed real miracles j my conviction is, that you would have to work very hard, and all in vain.g Much that you say is borrowed from common use and public discourse ; h which loses more than you suppose of its credit and authority, when summoned to the bar of conscience. True is the proverb, ' Many pass for saints on earth, whose souls are in hell/ But let us grant you, if you please, that even all of them were sanctified, had the Spirit, and wrought miracles (a concession which you do not ask) ; tell me, was any one of them sanctified, did any one of them receive the Spirit and work miracles, in the name or by the power of Freewill; or, to confirm the doctrine of Freewill ? God forbid, you will say : all these things were done in the name and by the power of Jesus Christ ; and in support of the doctrine of Christ. Why, then, do you adduce their sancti fixation, their having the Spirit, and their miracles, in support of the doctrine of Freewill;

for which they were not given and wrought? Their miracles, therefore, their having the Spirit, and their sanctification, are all ours; who preach Jesus Christ, in opposition to the powers and works of men. Now, what wonder is it, if those men (holy, spiritual, and workers of miracles as they were) being every now and then forestalled by the flesh, have spoken and have acted, according to the flesh? what happened more than once to the Apostles

& Multum sed frustrd sudatorum.] Horace's ' sudet multilm frustraque laboret :' implying great and inefficacious toil. h Ex usu et publicis sermonibus .] Us. ( men's saying what is usually said, what others say.' Publ. serm. 'what men talk in public ; ' contrasted with private meditation and the secret testimony of their own hearts. themselves, when living under the immediate eye sect, hi- of Christ. For you do not deny, but even assert, -— that Freewill is not a matter of the Spirit, or of Christ, but a mere human affair ; so that the Spirit, which was promised, that he might glorify Christ, cannot possibly preach Freewill. If, therefore, the Fathers have sometimes preached Freewill; assuredly they have spoken by the flesh, as men, and not by the Spirit of God: much less have they wrought miracles, that they might support it. So that your allegation respecting the Fathers, as having been sanctified, had the Spirit, and wrought miracles, is inapplicable : since it is not Freewill, but the dogma of Jesus Christ i as opposed to that of Freewill, which is proved thereby. But come now, ye that are on the side of Free- Luther will, and assert that a dogma of this sort is true ; challenges that is, has come from the Spirit of God ; still, shew efstill I say, manifest the Spirit, publish your mira- 6ctsofH. cles, display your sanctification. Assuredly you, thTtime* who assert, owe these things to us who deny, particular The Spirit, sanctification, miracles, ought not to cfeTwMch be demanded of us who deny ;

of you who assert, he has sethey ought. Since a negative advances nothing, le^f out is nothing, is not bound to prove any thing, nor mus'scataought to be proved itself. An affirmative ought lo§ueto be proved. You affirm the power of Freewill ; a human substance. But no miracle has ever yet been seen, or heard of, as performed by God, for any dogma in support of a human thing; but only for one in support of a divine thing. We have it in charge to receive no dogma whatsoever, which has not been first proved by divine attestations. (Deut.xviii. 15 — 22.) Moreover, the Scripture calls man vanity and a lie ;k which is in effect saying,

1 Jesu Christi dogma.'] Not f a dogma taught by Jesus Christ ;' but a ' dogma of which He is the subject:' 'the truth as it is in Jesus ;' which is directly opposite to this fancy of Freewill. k Ps. xxxix. 5. lxii. 9. part II. that all human things are vanities and lies. Come ■ then ; come, I say, and prove your dogma in support of a human vanity and lie, to be true. Where is now your manifestation of the Spirit ? where, your sanctification ? where, your miracles ? — I see talents, erudition, and authority — but God hath given these to the Gentiles also. And yet, it is not great miracles to which we will compel you; such as that of healing a lame horse;1 lest you should complain of a carnal age :m howbeit, God is wont to confirm his doctrines by miracles, without any regard to the carnality of the age. He is not moved by the merits or demerits of a carnal age, but by mere pity and grace ; and by a love of establishing souls in solid truth, unto His glory .n You are at liberty to work a miracle as small as you please. Nay, by way of provoking your Baal to exertion, I jeer you; and challenge you to create even a single frog, in the name and by the power of Freewill : of which the impious Gentile magicians in Egypt were enabled to create many.

For I will not put you to the trouble of creating lice ; which they also were not able to bring forth. 1 will set you a still lighter task : take but a single gnat or louse (since you tempt and mock my God with your fleer about healing a lame horse) ; and if, with the whole united force, and the whole conspiring efforts, both of your God and of yourselves, you shall be able to kill him — in the name and by the power of Freewill— you shall be proclaimed conquerors ; and it

1 Equum claudum sanare.~\ Erasmus's burlesque illustration of their want of miracles. Luther plays with it : ' we will not call you to practise upon so huge an animal as an horse ; we will be content with something less.' m Alluding- to the Lord's, " a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign." Matt. xvi. 4. xii. 39. n Luther confines the design of God in his miracles to the gracious object of them : but does not God also design, by these seals set upon his truth, to convict and render inexcusable the reprobate and ungodly ? shall be admitted that you have maintained your sect. HI. cause, and we will come presently and adore this — — " God of yours — the marvellous slayer of a louse ! Not that I deny your having the power even to remove mountains : but because it is one thing to have it asserted, that some act has been performed by the power of Freewill ; and another, to have it proved. What I have said of miracles, I say also of sanctification. If, in so great a series of ages and of men, and of all things which you have named, you shall be able to show a single work (let it be but the lifting up of a straw from the ground) ; or a single word (let it be but the syllable ' my');

or a single thought (let it be but the feeblest sigh) — proceeding from Freewill — by which they have either applied themselves to grace, or earned the Spirit, or obtained pardon of sin, or have negociated any thing (let it be as diminutive as you please — we will not talk about their sanctification) with God; be ye again the victors, and we the vanquished ! But then it must be through the power and in the name of Freewill ! For, as to what is done in men through the power of a divine creation, it has Scripture testimonies in abundance. You certainly ought to exhibit some work of this kind, if you would not make yourselves ridiculous teachers, by spreading dogmas through- ,

out the world, with all this superciliousness and authority, about a thing of which you produce no record. For those shall be called dreams, which produce no result whatsoever (the most disgraceful thing imaginable) to persons of so great consequence, living through such a series of ages, men of the greatest erudition and sanctity, who have also the power of working miracles. The issue will be, that we prefer the Stoics before you ; who, although they too described a wise man such as they never saw, still endeavoured to exhibit the likeness of some part of him in their own character. part ii. But you have absolutely nothing to show; not even the shadow of your dogma. So again, with respect to the Spirit: if, out of all the assertors of Freewill, you can show me one, who hath possessed even so small a degree of strength of mind, or of good feeling, as might enable him to despise a single farthing, to forego a single cast of the die, or to forgive a single word or letter of injury (I will not talk of despising wealth, life, and fame), in the name and through the power of Freewill ; take the palm again, and I will be content to be sold as your captive.0 You ought at least to show us this, after all your big swelling words p in boast of Freewill ; else, you will again seem to be either wrangling about goats' wool, or, like the noble Argian, seeing plays in an empty theatre. q sect. iv. But, in contradiction to your statement, I shall

easily shew you that holy men, such as you vaunt The saints yourself to possess, as often as they come to pray disdaim y or plead with God, approach him in an utter forFreewiii, getfulness of their own Freewill; despairing of Sub hastam libenter ikimus.~\ The custom of selling under the spear was derived from the sales of booty taken in war ; in which the spear was set up, and the spoil sold under it, to denote whence the property had been obtained. So constant, however, was the use of the spear in auctions, that ' hasta' is sometimes put absolutely for the auction itself; and f sub hasta venire' corresponds to our ' coming under the hammer." Luther applies it here, in agreement with its original use ; f he will freely come to the spear, that he may be sold as a part of Erasmus's spoil.' p Buccd verborum.'} ' The puffed or distended cheek' is used to express ' anger,' c pride,' or ' boastfulness.' Horace has * iratus buccas inflet ;' Persius, * scloppo tumidas intendis rumpere buccas.' 1 Land caprind, vacuo theatre:] The first allusion (Hor. 1. Epist. xviii. 15.) charges him with 'contentious trifling;' like the man who quarrels with his friend about goats' hair, whether it should be called Wool or bristles ; ' fighting for straws •' the second — ' fuit haud ignobilis Argis'— (Hor. 2. Epist. ii. 128 — 130, &c.) with indulging ' a harmless but disordered fancy.' — If you cannot show us any moral effects produced by it, Freewill must be either a thing of no value,, or an illusion.

themselves, and imploring nothing but pure grace sect. v. only; which they acknowledge to be far removed • from their own deservings. Such a man does !^we^ear Augustine frequently prove himself to have been; dispute such did Bernard, when, in his dying-hour, he about it. said, < I have lost my time, for I have lived abominably/' I do not see any power which applies itself for grace alleged in these expressions, but all the power which a man has, accused of absolutely turning away from it.3 And yet, these selfsame holy men sometimes spoke a different language about Freewill, in their disputations. Just what happens, as I perceive, to all mankind : they are one sort of people, whilst intent upon words and reasonings; and another, when feeling and acting. In the former instance, they speak a language which differs from their previous feelings ; in the latter, their feelings contradict their previous language. But men are to be measured by their feelings, rather than their discourse; whether they be pious, or impious. But we give you still more : we do not demand Luther demiracles, the Spirit, sanctification ; we return to jjjj^jjj^ the dogma itself : demanding only, that you 0f Freeshall at least shew us, what work, what word, will; asp* what thought, this power of the free will stirs up, cf its parts, or attempts to perform, in order that it may apply powers, itself to grace.

It is not enough to say, ' there is ^dS?" a power/ ' there is a power/ 6 there is a certain dents. power, I say, in the free will / for what is easier than to say this ? Nor is this worthy of those most learned and most holy men, who have been approved by so many ages. c The babe must be named/ as the German proverb has it. You must define what that power is, what it does, what it suffers, what are its accidents. For example ; speaking as one most dull of apprehension, I would ask,

r Perdite.'] ' More perditi hominis ; flagitiose/ ' nequiter, corrupted 3 Non nisi aversa fueritJ] Opposed to ' ad gratiam sese applicet / aversation and disgust,, instead of desire and seeking. part II. is it the office of this power either, to pray, or to ■ fast, or to labour, or to keep under the body, or to give alms, or to do any thing else of this kind, or does it make any attempt at these things ? If it be a power, it will be trying to achieve something. But here, you are more dumb than the Seriphian frogs, and fishes.1 And how is it possible that you should define it, when, according to your own testimony, you are still uncertain what the power itself is ; at variance with each other, and each of you inconsistent with himself? What will become of the definition, when the thing defined means one thing in one place, and another in another? But let it be granted, that, since the time of Plato, there has, at length, been some sort of agreement amongst you, about the power itself: let it further be defined, as its office, that it prays, or fasts, or does something of this sort, which still, perhaps, lies concealed in the maze of Plato's 6 Ideas/U Who shall assure us, that the dogma is true, that it is well-pleasing to God, and that we are safe in maintaining it ? x Especially, when you confess yourselves that it is a human thing, which has not the testimony of the Spirit; for that it

1 Seriphus was an island in the iEgean sea -, one of the Sporades ; where, according to iElian, the frogs never croaked ; but, when removed to another place, became more noisy and clamorous than others. The latter part of the story, however, is differently told, and in a manner more consistent with the proverb ; that they retained their dumbness, when transferred and mingled with others. Hence the saying, Bdrpaxo?' ck 2ep0a, for a silent man, who can neither speak, nor sing. u Platonis Ideis.] A term used by Plato to denote the first forms of things ; the sort of mental draught, according to which nature (in the language of a heathen philosopher — and would it were only professed heathens who speak so !) has framed all her substances. ' Plato ideas vocat ex quibus omnia quaecunque videmus fiunt, et ad quas omnia formantur.' x Nosque tutb rectum agere, i. e. in rectum.] More literally, ' safe in going straight forwards.' Quasi ( in rectum agere iter.' " Iterque Non agit in rectum." ..." in rectum exire catervas." was bandied by the philosophers, and had a sect. v. being in the world, before Christ came, and ■

before the Spirit was sent from heaven. Thus it is made most certain, that this dogma was not sent from heaven, but had been born long before, out of the earth : so that a great deal of testimonyis necessary, to confirm it as certain and true. Let us, then, be private men and few, whilst you are even publicans y and a multitude ; let us be barbarians, and you most learned ; let us be stupid, and you most ingenious ; us, men of yesterday, and you older than Deucalion ; us, men of no acceptance ; you, men who have received the approbation of ages ; us, in fine, sinners, carnal, sottish ;z you, men fitted to excite fear in the very devils, by your sanctity, the Spirit which is in you, and your miracles. Give us, at least, the right of Turks and Jews ; that of demanding a reason for your dogma, agreeably to what your great patron St. Peter a has commanded you. We ask this, however, with the greatest modesty ; inasmuch y Publicani.'] Not without meaning used here instead of publici, as opposed to privati. The publicans were government-officers, employed in collecting the public revenues 5 which they contracted for at a price, and lived upon the produce. They were chiefly of the equestrian order, and held in honour. ' Erant publicani equites Romani, qui tributa et publica vectigalia questus sui causa conducebant.' ' Publicani autem, sunt, qui publico fruuntur.' f Flos equitum Romanorum, ornamentum civitatis, firmamentum reipub.

Publicanorum ordine continetur.' — Luther uses the name, if I understand him aright, equivocally. Whilst he gives them the glory of publicity, he hints at their support being derived from the Jiscus, and the infamous celebrity which they had acquired by their exactions. In fact, what were the barefaced traffickers in Indulgences, such as Tetzel and others, but publicans of the worst stamp ? — I do not find any authority for the word publicanus, but as referred to this office.

z Socordcs.'] Quasi sine corde. l Not only sinful, instead of sanctified -, and carnal, instead of having the Spirit ; but absolutely without natural intellect and feeling. a Referring to 1 Pet. iii. 15. (( And be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear." Petrus vester. ( Your tutelar saint and pretended founder.' part ii. as we do not demand that it be proved to us, by sanctification, by the Spirit, and by miracles, as we might do according to your own law ; which is, to demand these things of others. Nay, we even allow you not to give us any instance of thought, word, or deed in your dogma; but to teach us the simple, naked proposition. Declare the dogma itself, at least ; what you wish to be understood by it ; what is its form.b If you will not, or cannot give us an example of it, let us at least try to give you one. Imitate the Pope and his cardinals at least, who say, ' Do what we say, but do not according to our works/ Even so, do ye also say what work that power requires to be performed by its subjects, and we will apply ourselves to it ; leaving you to yourselves. What ! shall we not even gain this from you ?

The more you exceed us in numbers, the more ancient you are, the greater, the better in all respects than we,* by so much the more disgraceful is it to you, that you are not able to prove your dogma — by the miracle of even slaying a louse, or by any very small affection of the Spirit, or by any very small work of holiness — to us, who are a mere nothing in your presence, and are wishing to learn and perform your dogma. Nay, you are not even able to exemplify it in a single deed or word. More than this, you are not even able to declare the very form or meaning of the dogma (such a thing as never was heard of), that we, at least, might imitate it. Delightful teachers of Freewill ! What are ye now, but a voice, and nothing else? Who are those now, Erasmus, that make boast of the Spirit, and show

b Qudformd.~\ In a dialectic sense. * A dialecticis sumitur pro specie subjecta generi.' ' Formae sunt, in quas genus dividitur.' - Specificate/ or f define it ; i. e. enumerate and combine all the several ideas contained in it. — We do not ask miracles, &c. j we do not even ask an example, by way of illustrating it ; but we do require a clear and explicit affirmation of what you mean $ a full and precise description of the supposed substance. nothing of it ? that only speak, and forthwith sect. v. expect to be believed. Are not these admired ones of yours, the men who do all this ; though so extolled to the skies ? who do not even speak, and yet make such great boasts and demands?0 We ask it as a favour, therefore, of yourself and of your party, my Erasmus, that you wrould at least grant to us, that, being terrified with the danger incurred by our conscience, we may be allowed to indulge our fears, or at least to defer our assent to a dogma, which you perceive yourself to be nothing but an empty word, and the sounding of so many syllables ; (to wit, ( There is such a thing as Freewill ;' c there is such a thing as Freewill ;*) if you should even have attained the summit of your object, and all your positions should have been proved and allowed.

Then, again, it is still uncertain, even amidst your own party, whether this mere word has a being or not ; since they are at variance one with another, and not agreed each with himself. It is a most unfair thing ; nay, the most wretched thing imaginable, that the consciences of those whom Christ hath redeemed with his own blood, should be harassed with the mere phantom of a single petty word, and that word of doubtful existence. Yet, if we do not suffer ourselves to be thus harassed, we are accused of an unheard of pride, for having despised so many Fathers, of so many ages, who have asserted the doctrine of Freewill ; when the truth is, that they have laid down no distinct propositions at all concerning Freewill, as you perceive from what has been said; and the dogma of Freewill is set up under the cover of their name, whilst its maintainers are unable to exhibit either

c Qui ne dicitis quidem."] * You are not even the nightingale.* (See above, Sect, i.) They had voice enough, when speaking for themselves $ but none with which to answer the questions and demands of their opponents. Erasmus's advice turned against himself: presumption, cruelty, want of discernment, charged upon him. its species, or its name/ It is thus, that they have contrived to delude the world with a lying word!6 And here, Erasmus, I summon your own and not another's counsel f to my aid; who persuadest us above, that we ought to desist from questions of this kind, and rather to teach Christ crucified, and such things as may suffice for christian piety. Such has now, for a long time, been the nature of our questions and discussions. For what else are we aiming at, but that the simplicity and purity of Christ's doctrine may prevail; and that those dogmas, which have been invented and introduced by men, may be abandoned and disregarded. But, whilst you give us this advice, you do not act it; but just the contrary. You write Diatribes, you celebrate the decrees of Popes, you boast in the authority of men, and try all means of hurrying us into those matters which are strangers and aliens from the holy Scriptures, and of agitating unnecessary topics; in order that we may corrupt and confound the simplicity and genuineness of christian piety with the additions of men. Hence we readily perceive, that you have not given us this counsel from your heart ; and that you do

d Neque speciem neque nomen.~\ e They can neither define it, nor find an appropriate name by which to express it.' e Mendaci vocabulo.~] Though they cannot find a name for it, they have got a word for it : but that word is a liar ; for it proclaims the will to be free, which is really in bondage. Logicians distinguish f vocabulum ' from ' nomen :' the former is arbitrary and general j the latter descriptive and precise. What you cannot name (according to this distinction) you may speak of. ' Differunt nomina et vocabula ; quia nomina finita sunt et significant res proprias ; vocabula autem infinita, et res communes designant.' f Appellamus.'] A forensic expression, applied to advocate, witnesses, and judge; but to each,, in consistency with its primary meaning of ' addressing a person by name j' irpoacKyopevw Luther would avail himself of Erasmus's own testimony and advice, now that he has shewn the dogma of Freewill to be this unauthorized and unprofitable one. Erasmus had recommended that all such should be suppressed. not write any thing seriously, but trust to the vain sect. vi. and puerile ornaments of your language,? as that which may enable you to lead the world whithersoever you please. Meanwhile you, in point of fact, lead it no whither ; for you utter nothing but sheer contradictions throughout the whole, and in every part : so that you would be most fitly characterised by the man who should call you Proteus, or Vertumnus11 himself ; or who should accost you with the words of Christ, and say, "Physician, heal thyself!" It is disgraceful to the teacher, when the fault, which he reproves, reproves himself.1

Until you shall have proved your affirmative, therefore, we persist in our negative ; and venture to make it our boast at the tribunal of our judge (even though that judge should be the whole band of holy men, which you vaunt yourself as having all on your side ; or, rather, should be the whole world) ; that we do not, and ought not to admit a dogma, which is really nothing, and of which it cannot be shewn, with certainty, what it is. We will, moreover, charge you with an incredible degree of presumption, or insanity, in demanding that this dogma should be admitted by us ; without any reason, except that it pleases your High Mightinesses — who are so many, so great, and so ancient — to assert the being of a s Inanibus bullis verborum.~\ ' Prettinesses of style.' * Bulla * is properly ' a bubble, made by the boiling of water,' and is thence applied to divers ornaments of dress ; particularly to one in the shape of a heart, worn by the Roman youth : of which the quality depended upon their rank, or degree of nobility. This they dedicated to the Lares, when they took the manly gown.

h Vertumnus had, amongst the Latins, the same property of assuming all shapes, which Proteus had amongst the Greeks. 1 Luther does not tell us to whom he is indebted for this metrical aphorism. — Erasmus had played the physician, prescribing silence with respect to some dogmas ; his own is shewn to be one of them. part ii. thing, which you confess yourselves to be a mere nothing. Is it really a conduct worthy of christian teachers, to delude the poor wretched common people, in the matter of piety, with a mere nothing ; as though it were a something of great moment to their salvation ! Where is now that sharpness of Grecian wit, which heretofore invented lies, having at least some shew of beauty; but on this subject utters only naked and undisguised falsehoods ? Where is now that Latin industry, not inferior to Grecian, which in this instance so beguiles, and is beguiled, with the vainest of words ?k But thus it happens to unwary, or designing, readers of books : they make those dogmas of the Fathers and of the Saints which are the offspring of their- infirmity, to be all of the highest authority ; the fault not being that of the authors, but of the readers. Just as if a man, leaning on the sanctity and authority of St. Peter, should contend that all which Peter ever said is true ; including even that saying in Matt.

xvi. 22. by which, through infirmity of the flesh, he persuaded Christ not to suffer ; or that saying, by which he commanded Christ to depart from him out of the ship (Luke v. 8.) $ and many others, for which he is reproved by Christ himself. sec. vn. Men of this sort are like those, who, by way of ~~; — ; — sneering at the Gospel, go chattering that all is donTtT not true which is in the Gospel ; and lay hold of the Fa- that word (John viii. 48.) where the Jews say to thers, by Christ, " Say we not well that thou art a Samatheir bad ritan, and hast a devil ?" or that, " He is guilty

k Erasmus had bestowed these and some other commendations upon the Greek and Latin Fathers, to the disparagement of the Reformers, as making for his side in the argument. Luther asks, whether what they had said on Freewill was a specimen of this richness of invention, and laboriousness of investigation and expression ? Here they had not excelled, any more than Erasmus himself; to whom Luther was not backward to ascribe the praise of resembling and even equalling them. of death;" or that "We have found this fellow sec. vh. subverting our nation, and forbidding to give tribute unto Cassar." The assertors of Freewill sayings do just the same thing (with a different design, it ™s ££ is true ; and not willingly, but through blindness good. and ignorance), when they lay hold on what the Fathers, having fallen through infirmity of the flesh, savin support of Freewill; and oppose it to what the same Fathers have, in the strength of the Spirit, said elsewhere against it : after which, they go on presently to make the better give place to the worse. Thus it comes to pass, that they give authority to the worse sayings, because they make for the judgment of their flesh; and withdraw it from the better, because they make against that judgment.

Why do we not rather choose the better? Many such sayings are in the works of the Fathers. To give you an instance : what saying can be more carnal ; nay, what saying can be more impious, more sacrilegious, and more blasphemous ; than that wonted one of Jerome's ? 'Virginity fills heaven, and marriage earth/ As if earth, and not heaven, were the due of those patriarchs, apostles, and private Christians, who have married wives ; or heaven were the due of vestal virgins amongst the heathens, without Christ ! Yet the Sophists collect these, and like sayings, from the Fathers; maintaining a contest of numbers, rather than of judgment, to get the sanction of authority for them. Just like that stupid fellow, Faber of Constance,1 who presented his Margaritum (more properly called his stable of Augeas) lately to the 1 John Faber, a native of Suabia j "who, from one of his works against the Reformers, probably this very work, was called * The Mallet of the Heretics.' He was advanced to the see of Vienna in 1531, and died there in 1542. His elevation was supposed to have been the fruit of his zeal against Luther. He entitled it his Pearl : but Luther would rather call it his Dunghill; with allusion to Hercules's famous labour of removing the long accumulated filth of 3000 oxen.

Objection, ' that God should have disguised the error of his Church/ answered. public, that the pious and learned might have their nauseating and vomiting draught. In answer to what you say, ' that it is incredible that God should have disguised m the error of his Church for so many ages, and should not have revealed to any of his saints what we maintain to be the very head of evangelical doctrine ;' I reply : First, that we do not say that this error has been tolerated by God in his Church, or in any saint of His. For, the Church is governed by the Spirit of God ; the saints are led by the Spirit of God (Rom. viii. 14.); and Christ remains with his Church even unto the end of the world (Matt. xxviii. 20.) ; and the Church of God is the pillar and ground of the truth." (1 Tim. iii. 15.) These things, I say, we know. For thus speaks even our common creed ; ' I believe in the holy Catholic Church :' so that it is impossible for her to err in the least article.0 And if we should even grant m Dissimuldrit.~\ ' Diligenter et astute celo, occulto, fingo non esse, quod revera est.'

n 2t7/Xo9 leal ehpalwfxa -nys aXrjOeiar'] Luther connects and refers these words, as the older editions of the Scriptures, and our translators, have done ; but Griesbach, and others after him, connect them with what follows. A very important sense is thus elicited -, " the pillar and ground of the truth (and without controversy great is the mystery of godliness) is God was manifested in the flesh, &c." — But there seems an evident allusion to the ancient tabernacle, with its boards and sockets (the pillars, or uprights, and the silver foundations into which these were grooved ; see Exod. xxvi. 15 — 30.) j of which the Church of God is the blessed reality ; even as that was the image, or figure. ° Luther seems to have inferred the immaculateness of the militant and visible Church, from the above, and other like testimonies ; ' an entire exemption from error in a certain eversubsistent community of the Lord's people tabernacling in flesh of sin'. The Nineteenth Article of our Church declares, more correctly, ' The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly ministered, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred ; not only in their living and manner of ceremonies,, but also in matters of faith.'— The same

that some elect persons are held in error all their sec.viii. lifetime, still they must/ before death, return into the way ; because Christ says (John x. 28.), " No Erasmus one shall pluck them out of my hand." But this what he°V€ must be your labour and your achievement; even calls the to make it appear, with certainty, that those whom be1^e ' t0 you call the Church, are the Church ; or, rather, Church. that those, who all their lifetime were wanderers, have not at length been brought back to the fold, before they died. For it does not directly follow, if God hath suffered all those whom you adduce (scattered through as long a series of ages as you please, and men of the greatest erudition, if you please) to abide in error, that therefore he has suffered his Church to abide in error. Look at Israel, the people of God : of all their kings, so many in number, and reigning during so long a period, not even one is mentioned, but what erred. And under Elias the Prophet, to such a degree had all men, and all that was public* of that people, departed into idolatry; that he thought himself left alone. Yet, in the mean time, whilst God was going to destroy kings, princes, priests, prophets, and whatsoever could be called the people or church of God, he reserved to himself seven thousand men. But who saw or knew these to be the people of God ? So then, who will dare to deny, that God hath even now preserved to himself a Church amongst the common people, concealed under those principal men, (for you mention none but men of public office and of name — ) and hath left all those to perish, as he did in the kingdom of Israel ? since it is God's pecu-

remark extends to each individual of the faithful. Who hath not erred in his lifetime ? Of whom shall we say, that he died without any mixture of error in his creed ? — Luther's representation, therefore, requires restriction : of such error as he is disputing about, it holds good. p Omne quod publicum erat.'] c Men of public station,, as opposed to private men.' Luther does not forget Erasmus's privatus and publicus. part ii. liar right and act, to entangle the choice men of Israel, and to slay their fat ones (Psa. lxxviii. 31), but to preserve the dregs and remnant of Israel alive ; as Esaias saith.q What happened under Christ himself: when all the Apostles were offended, and he was denied, and condemned by the whole people ; scarcely one or two, Nicodemus and Joseph, and afterwards the thief upon the cross, being preserved to him ? But were these, at that time, called the people of God? There was, indeed, a people of God remaining, but it was not called so : what was called so, was not that people. Who knows, whether such may not have been the state of the Church of God always, during the whole course of the world, from its beginning ; that some have been called the people and saints of God, who were not really so ; whilst others, abiding as a remnant in the midst of them, have been, but have not been called, his people or saints ? as is shewn by the history of Cain and Abel, of Ishmael and Isaac, of Esau and Jacob.

Look at the Arian period :r when scarcely five °i Frequent promises are made in this Prophet that ' a remnant shall be left.' " Except the Lord of Hosts had left us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom," &c. (Is. i. 9.) " The remnant of Israel and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob Theremnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God." <e For though my people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return." (x. 20, 21, 22. Comp. Rom. ix. 27.) So Is. xi 11— 16. But I do not find the expressions ' dregs' and ' remnant' united. r Arrianorum seculum.~] Arianism arose early in the fourth century ; about three hundred years before the rise of the Popedom ; and, though condemned by Councils, was adopted by several of Constantine's successors, and became a source of grievous persecution to those who were sound in the faith. For an account of its origin and real nature, see Milner's Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. pp. 51 — 54. It was, in substance, a denial of the co-eternity, co-equality, and co-essentiality of the Lord Jesus Christ with the Father. ' Already some secret and ambiguous attempts had been made to lessen the idea of the divinity of the Son of God. While his eternity was admitted by Eusebius the

Catholic3 bishops were preserved in all the world, sec.viii. and those driven from their sees; the Arians historian, lie yet was not willing to own him co-equal with the Father. Arius went greater lengths : he said, 'That the Son proceeded out of a state of non-existence ; that he was not before he was made ; that he, who is without beginning, has set his Son as the beginning of things that are made j and that God made one, whom he called Word, Son, and Wisdom, by whom he did create us.' (Miln. in loc.) Like all the rest of heresy, it is truth corrupted ; and the only solid and satisfactory answer will be given to it, not by boldly asserting and proving the real and proper divinity of the Lord Jesus, but by showing forth his whole person in its complexity ; made up, as it is, of two persons, a divine person and an human person, held together by an indissoluble union : the secret being, that God does all his works by this complex person's agency, who acts in his human person as plenarily inspired by the Holy Ghost. This person who thus doeth that will of God — of God, even the Trinity — which is referred to the Father personally ; does hereby, amongst other subjects of manifestation, especially manifest that which we may well suppose to be the preeminent object of display in the tri-une Jehovah, the threefold personality of his one undivided essence.

— I am aware that the term ' union of persons,' as substituted for • union of natures,' will be deemed objectionable, till it is well considered : but I have the authority of one of the best philosophers I know, for thus entitling the human part of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. e That which can contrive, which can design, must be a person. These capacities constitute personality, for they imply consciousness and thought. They require that which can perceive an end or purpose ; as well as the power of providing means, and of directing them to their end. They require a centre in which perceptions unite, and from which volitions flow ; which is mind. The acts of a mind prove the existence of a mind • and in whatever a mind resides is a person. The seat of intellect is a person.' (Paley's Nat. Theol. pp. 439, 440, 14th Edn.) Now, is it not plain from Scripture, and the admission of all Christians, with a very few heretical exceptions, that the Lord Jesus had this human mind, distinct from his godhead ? he had, therefore, according to this description, a person distinct from his divine person. — And, what is to hinder that divine person, if the will of God be so, from taking up an human person into union with himself, and acting in that person, from thenceforth, not in his divine person? Is not that union real, which subsists between this divine person and this human person ; when this human person, having been first generated, is afterwards inhabited, by his co-equal co- essential in the unity of God ? Does it not also subsist without for-

part ii. reigning every where, under the public name, and as filling the office/ of the Church. Nevertheless, under the dominion of those heretics, Christ preserved his Church; but in such a form, that it was by no means supposed to be, or regarded as, the Church. Under the reign of the Pope, shew me a single bishop discharging his duty; shew me a single Council, in which matters of piety were treated of; feiture of distinctness ? Is it not also constant and unbroken, when that divine person evermore acts in and by that human person, putting his godhead as it were into abeyance ? Yet, are not his acts and his sufferings the acts and sufferings of the co-equal of the Father, and of the Holy Ghost ? There is no diminution, it is plain, of his essential godhead, in his voluntarily, and to a great end, submitting to act by and in this creature person ; which constitutes him at the same time both creature and Creator : very man doeth the works of God, and very God doeth the works of man. — And, if this complexity of person is thus to be realized in time, what is to hinder that person in God, in whom it is to be realized, from transacting as though he actually were this complex person, from and in the beginning? Is not Jehovah's will both immutable and irresistible ? is it not his propriety, to call things which are not as though they were, and to give realized being to substances which, as yet, exist in predestination ?

And must he not have acted thus in this particular instance, when he chose a people of mankind to be in this complex person as a head, and gave grace to that people so chosen, before the world began ? — Now, therefore, we can meet Arius upon his own ground, and confound him even there. Admitting all that he says, and says from the plain text of Scripture, about ' begotten,' ' nonexistence,' ' was not before he was made,' ' God hath made one whom he calls Word, Son, and Wisdom, by whom he did create us •/ this in no wise impugns the co-eternity, co-equality, and co-essentiality of the Lord Jesus Christ with the Father : his human person, by and in which he has thus been doing all things, is the creature which Arius would describe ; but he who assumed this person into union with himself is very God ; which implies, that he is all that God is.

s Catholici.~\ Cath. opposed to heretical; a Greek term (aipeais^ alpeTLKor) denoting ' selection', or ' partiality,' as opposed to the profession of the whole faith. 1 Publico nomine el officio^] They were publicly called, and recognised as, Christ's Church 5 and performed its public functions. ERASxMUS'S PROEM REVIEWED. 101 and not robes, dignity, revenues, and other pro- sec.viii. fane trifles, which none but a madman can attri- — ■ bute to the Holy Spirit. Yet they are called the Church; when all who live as they did — whatever may be said of others — are in a lost state, and any thing* rather than the Church. Howbeit, under these Christ preserved his Church ; yet so, as not to have it called the Church. How many saints, think you, have these sole and special inquisitors11 of heretical pravity burnt and slain; in the course of some ages, for which they have now reigned? Such as John HussY and the like; in whose time, no doubt many holy men lived, of the same spirit. Why do you not rather express your admiration at this, Erasmus, that, from the beginning of the world, there have always existed amongst the heathens men of more excellent genius, greater erudition, and more ardent study, than amongst Christians, or the people of God ? Just as Christ himself confesses, that the children of this world are wiser than the children of light. (Luke xvi. 8.) What Christian is worthy to be compared with

u Soli isti inquisitor es.~] Referring, not to the Inquisition only (which was established about the year 1226 ; the Vaudois and Albigenses being the first objects of it) ; but to the whole system of espionage, confiscation, excommunication, and violence, with, which ' the lamb-like beast' professed to be achieving the extirpation of heresy ; whilst he was himself the great heresiarch. v John Huss, and his fellow-martyr Jerom of Prague, were amongst the earlier and most intrepid vociferators against the Papal abuses. They were favoured with much insight into the truth of God, walking in the light, and treading in the steps, of their immediate predecessor, WicklifFj though it has been said, that they struck at the branches rather than the root of Antichrist, not sufficiently exposing the predominant corruptions in doctrine. (See Milner, vol. iv. p. 2*5.) They suffered death, under very aggravated circumstances of perfidy, fierceness, and maliciousness, by a decree of the Council of Constance, 1415, 1416 ; about a hundred years before Luther's time. Huss is supposed to have been Luther's swan; singing of him in his death, as one that should come after. Church is not yet manifested ; the saints are hidden.

but Cicero only — not to mention the Greeks — in genius, erudition, and diligence ? What shall we then say to have been the hindrance, that none of them hath been able to attain to grace? Certainly they have exercised the free will with all their might : and who will venture to say, that not any one of them hath been most eagerly bent upon arriving at the truth ? Yet it must be asserted, that none of them hath reached it. Will you say here also, that it is incredible God should have left so many and so great men to themselves, throughout the whole coarse of the world, and should have suffered them to strive in vain ? Assuredly, if Freewill were any thing, or could do any thing, it must have been something, and have done something, in those men ; in some one of them at least. But it has effected nothing ; nay, its effect has always been the opposite way. So that Freewill may be fully proved to be nothing, by this single argument ; that, from the beginning of the world to the end, no sign can be shewn of it.

But to return to the point. What wonder, if God suffer all the great ones of the Church to walk in their own ways, when he has so left all nations to walk in their own ways ; as Paul says in the Acts? (xiv. 16.) The Church of God is not so vulgar s a thing, my Erasmus, as this name, 6 The Church of God/ by which it is called ; nor do the saints of God meet us up and down every where, so commonly as this name of theirs, 6 The Saints of God/ does. They are a pearl and noble gems; which the Spirit does not cast before swine, but, as the Scripture speaks, keeps hidden ; that the x Vulgaris."] Properly, < what is possessed by the common people;' c ordinary/ f common,' c promiscuous / opposed to ( rare,' ' choice/ f what is the possession of a few.' The names ' Church of God/ and e Saints/ are in every body's mouth; but the things signified by these names are select and few. wicked may not see the glory of God.y Else, if SECT* x* these were openly recognised by all people, how could it happen that they should be so afflicted and persecuted in the world? as Paul says, "If they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." z

I do not say these things, as denying that those Distincwhom you mention were saints, or were the Church J1™^6" of God ; but because it cannot be proved (should judgment any one be disposed to deny it) that these iden- ?ffaithand tical persons were saints, but must be left alto- 0f charity. gether uncertain : and, consequently, an argument drawn from their saintship is not of sufficient credit a to confirm any dogma. I call them saints, and account them such ; I call, and think them to have been, the Church of God ; but by the law of love, not by the law of faith : that is, charity, y Gloriam Dei.'] These substances are not only select, but hidden ; ' the Church' is an invisible community, and the saints have no outward badge to distinguish them. If they could be discerned by the eye, that Scripture would be falsified, which saith, ' The wicked shall not see the glory of God.' I do not find this text to which he appears to refer. The Lord's people are expressly called 'his hidden ones.' Ps. lxxxiii. 3. and his act of hiding them is mentioned Ps. xxvii. 5. xxxi. 20. Also the sentiment of * the wicked not seeing God,' is common in Scripture, though not with this allusion 3 which is evidently a strained one, though beautiful and just. But I do not find any Scripture which puts the two sentiments together 3 'hidden, that the wicked may not see.' ' The Church,' and ' each individual saint,' is a part of that substance, 'the mystical Christ,' which God has ordained and created to his glory.

z Dominion glorice crucijixissent.~] Here again, we have a strained application of Scripture (1 Cor. ii. 8.) 3 although the sentiment be correct. What the Apostle there says, he says of Christ personally and exclusively ; but it is also true, that, in persecuting his people, they act his crucifixion over again. They are animated with the same spirit as the crucifiers ; and the Lord himself has said, with application to this very case, " Why persecutest thou Me?" a Locum satis fidelem~\ Loc. more strictly, ' a fund of arguments 3 ' ' locus' et e loci,' sunt sedes argumentorum, ex quibus ea tanquam e promptuario petuntur. Fid. t fide dignus,' ' trustworthy 3 ' like Trurrm, it expresses either 'one who has faith,' or ' one towards whom faith is exercised,' part ii. which tliinketli all good of every man, and is in no wise suspicious, and believes and presumes all good of her neighbours, calls any baptized person youplease,b ' a saint/ Nor is there any mischief, if she be mistaken : because it is the lot of charity to be deceived; exposed, as she is, to all the uses and abuses of all men ; a general helper to the good and to the evil, to the faithful and to the unfaithful, to the true and to the false. But faith calls no man a saint, except he be declared such by a divine judgment.

Because it is the property of faith, not to be deceived. So that, whereas, we ought all to be accounted saints mutually, by the law of charity ; still, no one ought to be decreed a saint by the law of faith; as though it were an article of faith, that this or that man is a saint. It is in this way, that the Pope, that great adversary of God, who sets himself in the place of God, canonizes his saints : of whom he knows not that they are saints.0 How Lu- This only I affirm, with respect to those saints separIt°eUld °^ vours:> or rather of ours ; that, since they are at writers, variance amongst themselves, those rather should and parts ^ye been followed who spoke the best things;

or writings. ,, , . , -»-, •it • , r i that is, against Jbreewill m support ot grace; and those should have been left, who, through infirmity of the flesh, have witnessed to the flesh, rather than to the Spirit. Again ; those writers, who are inconsistent with themselves, should have been adopted and embraced where they speak after the Spirit, and left where they savour the flesh. This was the part of a christian reader; a clean animal, which parteth the hoof and cheweth the cud.d But our course has been, to post- b Quamvis baptisatum.~] Luther states this too broadly : the judgment of charity is moderate and indulgent ; but surely there are deflections, both in faith and practice, which place many ' a baptized unbeliever' beyond the bounds of the widest enclosures of charity. c See 2 Thessal. ii. 4. d See Levit. xi. 3. Deut. xiv. 6. pone the exercise of judgment, and to devour all sect.xi. sorts of meat indiscriminately : or, what is still — more unrighteous, by a perverse exercise of judgment, we reject the better and approve the worse, in the self-same authors ; and, after having done so, we affix the title and authority of their saintship to those very parts which are the worse : a title which they have deserved for their better parts, and for the Spirit only; not for their Freewill, or flesh.

' What shall we do then? The Church is a hidden Erasmus's community : the saints are not yet manifested. pe!ipl*f^ J in 1 t o and advice What and whom shall we believer or, as you stated; m most shrewdly argue, who shall assure us ? How some <le~ shall we try their spirit ?e Ifyoulookto erudition, Sated, but there are Rabbies on both sides. If you look to amended. the life, on both sides are sinners. If you look to Scripture, both parties embrace it with affection. Nor is the dispute so much about Scripture (which is not even yet quite clear) as about the meaning of Scripture/ Moreover, there are on both sides men, who, if they do not promote their cause at all by their numbers, their erudition, or their dignity ; much less do so, by their fewness, their ignorance, and their meanness. The matter is therefore left in doubt, and the dispute remains still under the hands of the judge : so that it seems as if we should act most prudently in withdrawing, as a body, into the sentiment of the Sceptics ; unless we should rather choose to follow your best of all examples, who profess to be just in such a state of doubt, as enables you to testify, that you are still a seeker and a learner of

e Uncle explorabimus Spiritiim.~] Referring to 1 John iv. 1. Erasmus talks about Paul's recommending- to try the spirits, but evidently his allusion is to these words of St. John. f Neque adeo de Scripturd.'] It is not so much the authority of Scripture, as its right interpretation, which is in dispute. Qua necdum. Want of clearness is hinted rather than affirmed j ( necdum implies, c notwithstanding all that has been written and decreed about it.' part ii. the truth ; inclining to that side which asserts the freedom of the will, only just until truth shall have To this I reply, 6 What you say here is the truth, but not the whole truth/5 For we shall not try the spirits by arguments drawn from the erudition, life, genius, multitude, dignity, ignorance, rudeness, paucity, or meanness of the disputants. Nor do I approve those, who place their refuge in a boast that they have the Spirit. For I have had a very severe contest this year,11 and am still maintaining it, with those fanatics who subject the Scriptures to the interpretation of their own spirit. Nay, it is on this ground, that I have hitherto inveighed against the Pope himself; in whose kingdom nothing is more commonly urged, or more commonly received, than this saying, c That the Scriptures are obscure and ambiguous ;' e that we must seek the interpreting spirit from the Apostolic See of Rome/ There cannot be a more pernicious assertion than this ;

from which ungodly men have taken occasion to exalt themselves above the Scriptures, and to fabricate just what they pleased : till at length, having quite trodden the Scriptures under foot, we were believing and teaching nothing but the dreams of madmen. In a word, this saying is no human invention, but a mouthful of poison sent into the world by the incredible malice of the very prince of all the devils. sec. xn. This is our assertion ; that the spirits are to be

tried and proved by two sorts of judgment. One of There are these js internal ; by which, the man who has been two tnbu- 7 v r7 ■ ■ c nais for the enlightened by the Holy Spirit, or special gift of s Neque nihil, neque omnia clicis.~] Erasmus says rightly, ' the spirits must be tried ; ' wrongly, ' that there is no test of them.' Also, the tests he proposes are bad. h It was in 1525 (the date of his performance), that Luther published his ( Address to the Celestial Prophets and Carolstadt.' God, for his own sake and for his own individual sec. xh. salvation, doth, with the greatest certainty, judge and discern the dogmas and thoughts of all men. spmts of cj o men * on. ft Of this judgment the Apostle speaks, 1 Cor. ii. private,the 15. " He that is spiritual judgeth all things, and other pubis judged of no man." This judgment appertains to faith ; and is necessary even to every private Christian. I have called it above cthe internal clearness of Holy Scripture/1 Perhaps, this is what was meant by those who have replied to you, c that every thing must be determined by the judgment of the Spirit/ But this judgment is of no profit to any other person besides ourselves, and is not the subject of inquiry in this cause : nor does any one, I dare say, doubt that this judgment is just what I state it to be.

There is, therefore, another judgment, which is external ; and by which we, not only for ourselves, but for others, and for the salvation of others, do with the greatest certainty judge the spirits and dogmas of all men. This is the judgment of the public ministry, an outward office, appealing to the word : what belongs chiefly to the leaders of the people, and preachers of the word.k We use it to confirm the weak, and to 1 See Part i. Sect. iv. k Judicium publici ministerii in verbo.'] Minis. ' The office,, or body, of ministers.' In verbo. The word is to them, what the law of the land is to a civil judge. Offic. exter. opposed to an internal function, or operation. Luther refers to the judgment of a synod, or council ; a tribunal, to which he always declared himself willing* to submit his own obnoxious assertions. He states the matter too broadly, and was guided by an image which he had in his mind of what might be, rather than by any exhibition of this external judgment which he had ever seen, or could appeal to as an example. A synod of real saints might be confidently looked to, as decreeing under the illumination of a light from above. But when has such a synod met since the council of Jerusalem ? (Acts xv. 1 — 31.) If, as it is probable, there be real saints in the council, who is to ensure their being the majority? Whilst great respect, therefore, is due to a judgment of this kind, it cannot be that infallible one, which Luther's commendations might seem to imply.

part ii. confute the gainsayers. I have called this above •' the external clearness of Holy Scripture/ Our assertion is, ' Let all the spirits be tried in the face of the Church at the bar of Scripture/ For it ought to be a first principle, most firmly maintained amongst Christians, that the Holy Scriptures are a spiritual light, far brighter than the sun ; especially in those things which pertain to salvation, or are necessary. But, since we have now for a long time been persuaded to a contrary opinion by that pestilent saying of the Sophists, ' That the Scriptures are obscure and ambiguous;'' I am compelled, in the first place, to prove that very first principle of ours, by which all the rest are to be proved:— what would to philosophers appear absurd and impossible. First, then, Moses says (Deut. xvii. 8), that, if any difficult cause should arise, they must go up to the place which God hath chosen for his name, Clearness of Scripture proved, by testimonies from the Old Testament. It is not strictly parallel to the ' external clearness' of Scripture 3 which he refers to, as asserted, Part i. Sect. iv. The testimony may be imperfectly brought out ; or the judges may not have eyes to see it. Would Luther undertake to say, that he should himself bring all the testimony that is in the Scriptures, to bear upon any given question ;

or would he, had he been able to cite it, have convinced the Council of Constance, or the Council of Trent ? After all, the private and internal judgment which he speaks of; the Spirit shining upon and confirming his testimony by the word, is that which the spiritual man must, and will, at last resort to, and can alone depend upon. He is thankful for, and in some sense obedient to, the1 judgment of pure synods (pure as such compounds can be expected to be) 5 but to a higher Master he standeth or falleth. " This I say then, walk in" (or after) "the spirit." (Gal. v. 16.) — Enough for Luther's purpose may, however, be admitted. Let all dogmas be brought to the standard of Scripture, publicly ; let the leaders and counsellors of the people declare upon them, stating the grounds of their decision. Such judgment will have its weight, though not paramount ; and it will be manifested how slender, or how false, are the foundations of error. This object is obtained, in a great degree, now, by the free canvass which religious, as well as other opinions, are made to submit to, from the press.

and there consult the Priests, who must judge it SEC.xm. according to the law of the Lord. " According to the law of the Lord/' saith he. But how shall they judge, except the law of the Lord, wherewith the people must be satisfied, were externally l most plain? Else, it were enough to say, 'They shall judge according to their own spirit/ Nay, the truth is, that in every civil government, all the causes of all the subjects are settled by the laws. But how could they be settled, except the laws were most certain, and just like so many shining lights amongst the people. For, if the laws were ambiguous and uncertain, not only would it be impossible that any causes should be decided, but there could be no certain standard of manners : since laws are made for this very purpose, that the manners of the people may be regulated by a certain model • and the principles by which causes are to be determined, may be defined.111 That which is to be the standard and measure of other things, ought itself to be by much the surest and clearest of all things : and such a sort of thing is the law. Now, if this light and certainty in their laws be both necessary, and also conceded freely to the whole world, by a divine gift, in profane governments (which are conversant about temporal things) ; how is it possible, that God should not have granted laws and rules of much greater light and certainty to his christian people (Jiis chosen, forsooth); whereby to direct their own hearts and lives individually, and to settle all their causes? since He would have temporal things to be despised by his children ? For, " if God so

1 Externe.] As opposed to a light of the Spirit, within the soul. m Causarum qucestiones definiantur.~\ The book of the laws lays down and recognises certain broad principles, to which the facts of each case are applied. These principles must be determinately fixed, admitted, and perspicuously affirmed. ' Status causa/ is the question of fact, at issue 5 ' quastio causa/ the law principle to which it is referable. part ii. clothe the grass, which to clay is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, how much more shall he clothe us?" — But let us go on to overwhelm this pestilent saying of the Sophists with Scripture. The nineteenth Psalm (ver. 8) says, " The commandment of the Lord is lightsome, or pure ; enlightening the eyes." I suppose that which enlightens the eyes, is not obscure, or ambiguous. So the 119th Psalm (ver. 130) says, "The door of thy words enlighteneth ; it giveth understanding to thy little ones." Here he attributes to the words of God that they are ' a door/ ' a something set open/ what is exposed to the view of all, and enlightens even the little ones. Isaiah viii. (ver. 20) sends all questions to the law and to the testimony ; threatening, that the light of the morning shall be denied us, unless we do so.n

In Zech. ii.° he commands them to seek the law from the mouth of the Priest, as being the messenger of the Lord of Hosts. Pretty messenger or ambassador of the Lord, forsooth, if he speak those things which are both ambiguous in themselves, and obscure to the people ; so that he is as ignorant of what he speaks, as they are of what they hear. And what is more frequently said to the praise of Scripture, throughout the whole of the Old Testament, and especially throughout that single hundred and nineteenth Psalm, than that it is in itself n In our version, it is not a threat, but an explanation of a fact : " If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in themc" — A testimony equally conclusive as to the clearness of the word ; for how are we to compare declarations, and ascertain their conformity with the written word, if that word be not plain ? ° A false reference : the words are found in Malachi ii. 7- " For the Priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth 5 for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts."

a most certain and a most evident light ? For thus sec.xiv. he celebrates its clearness, " Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my paths." (v. 105.) He says not, ' Thy Spirit only is a lamp unto my feet :' albeit, he assigns its office to this also ; saying, u Thy good Spirit shall conduct me forth p in a right land." Thus, it is called both a 6 way' and € a path;'q doubtless, from its exceeding great certainty. Let us come to the New Testament. Paul says Clearness (Rom. i. 2.), that the Gospel was promised by the ° fecnp Prophets in the Holy Scriptures : and in chap. iii. proved, by that the righteousness of faith was witnessed by testimothe law and the Prophets. (Ver. 21.) But what theNew sort of a witnessing was this, if obscure ? Nay, he Testanot only makes the Gospel c the word of light/ meilt* c the gospel of clearness/ in all his Epistles ; but does this professedly, and with great abundance of words, in 2 Cor. iii. and iv. where he reasons boastfully upon the clearness, as well of Moses as of Christ/

Peter also says (2 Peter i. 19), cc We have a very sure word of prophecy ; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place/' Here Peter makes the word of God a clear lamp, and all other things darkness : and do we make obscurity and darkness of it ? Christ so often calls himself " the light of the world/' and John the Baptist " a burning and a shining light ;" not because of the sanctity of their lives, doubtless; but because of the word: just p Deducet.'] Like the nrpoireiMTw of the Greeks, expresses ' the escorting' of a person to his home. ** Via et semita.~] Via, 'the broad carriage-road/ semita, f the narrow foot-path.' * Gloriose disputat.~] The Apostle institutes a comparison (in chap iii.) between the glory of the Gospel ministry and that of Moses ; shewing the superiority of the former. The scope and effect of the comparison is to magnify his own office : but the clearness of both is assumed, as the very basis of the argument ; a clearness, indicated in Moses by the glory of his countenance. part ii. as Paul calls the Philippians " bright lights of the

world;" "because ye hold fast3 the word of life/' says he. For, without the wo rd,life is uncertain and obscure. And what are the Apostles about, when they prove their own preachings by the Scriptures ? Is it, that they may darken their own darkness to us, by greater darkness ? or, is it to prove the more known thing by one more unknown? What is Christ about, in John v. (ver. 39.) when he teaches the Jews to search the Scriptures ; as being his witnesses, forsooth ? Is it that he may render them doubtful about the faith of him?1 What are those persons about, in Acts xviii. (ver. 2.) who, on hearing Paul, read the Scriptures day and night, to see whether those things were so ? Do not all these things prove, that the Apostles, as well as Christ himself, appeal to the Scriptures, as the clearest witnesses to the truth of their discourses ? With what face, then, do we represent them as obscure ? I beg to know, whether these words of Scripture are obscure or ambiguous, " God created the heavens and the earth ;" " and the word was made flesh f and all those affirmations which the whole world has received as articles of faith : and whence received them, but from the Scriptures? And what are those about, who preach still to this day ? Do they interpret and declare11 the Scrip-

s Our translation says " holding forth;" Luther says " teneMs:" the original word is iirexavrer ' exhibeo,' ' prae me fero.' But it must be possessed, before it can be held forth ; and, if on this account they be called " lights," what must the word itself be ? 1 Defide sui.~\ If these witnesses were doubtful, not clear ; he would be justifying them in their unbelief, instead of establishing his claim to be received. u Declarant.'] ' Make clear,' or ' cause to be seen j' it refers to the matter of Scripture, as inierpretantur does to the meaning of the terms ; an ' avowing,' ' propounding,' or ' distinctly setting forth to the world,' of the testimony, or truth of God, which is contained and shut up in the Scriptures. tures? If the Scripture, which they declare, be ob- sec.xiv. scure ; who is to assure us, that even this decla- ration of it is certain? Another new declaration? What shall declare that also ? At this rate, we shall have an endless progression. In fine, if Scripture be obscure or doubtful, what need was there for it to be declared to us by God from heaven? Are we not sufficiently obscure and ambiguous, without having our obscurity, ambiguity, and darkness increased to us from heaven ? What will then become of that saying of the Apostle, " All Scripture, having been given by inspiration of God, is profitable for teaching, for reproving, and for convincing?" (2 Tim.

iii. 16.) Nay, it is absolutely useless, Paul ! and what thou attributest to Scripture must be sought from the Fathers, who have been received for a long series of ages, and from the Roman see ! Thy sentence, therefore, must be revoked, which thou writest to Titus, " That a bishop must be mighty in sound doctrine, that he may be able both to exhort and to refute the gainsayers, and to stop the mouth of vain-talkers and soul-deceivers." How shall he be mighty, when thou leavest him the Scriptures obscure ; that is, arms of flax ; and, for a sword, light stubble ? Then must Christ also recant his own word, who falsely promises us, " I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist." How shall they not resist, when we fight against them with obscure and uncertain weapons? — Why dost thou also prescribe a form of Christianity to us, if the Scriptures are obscure to thee?

But I think I have long been burdensome, even to men of no sensibility, in making so long delay, and so wasting my forces' on a proposition which is most evident. But it was necessary to over- v Tantas moras traho et copias perdo.~\ His c copise' are his Scripture testimonies and reasonings. part ii. whelm that impudent and blasphemous saying, * The Scriptures are obscure ;' that you also might see, my Erasmus, what it is you say, when you deny the Scripture to be quite clear. For you must, at the same time, assent to me, that all your saints, whom you adduce, are much less clear. For who shall assure us of their light, if you make out the Scriptures to be obscure? So that those, who deny the Scriptures to be most clear and most evident/ leave us nothing but darkness. sec. xv. Bat }iere y0U win say^ 'All this is nothing to ~~ me; I do not say that the Scriptures are obscure elusion is, upon all subjects (for who would be mad enough if the dog- to say so?); but only or this, and the like.' My Freewill answer is; neither do I assert these things in

be obscure, opposition to you only, but in opposition to all Serf "tur"1 W^° tnrnk as you do. And again: in opposition to you distinctly; I affirm, with respect to the whole Scripture, that I will not allow any part of it to be called obscure. What I have cited from Peter stands good here ; that u the word of God is a lamp shining to us in a dark place." y Now, if there be a part of this lamp which shineth not; it will become part of the dark place, rather than of the lamp itself. Christ has not so enlightened us, as wilfully to leave some part of his word dark; when he, at the same time, commands us to give heed to it : for in vain he commands ns to give heed, if it doth not shine. So that, if the dogma of Freewill be obscure or ambiguous; it belongeth not to Christians and to the Scriptures, and should be altogether aban- x Lucidissimas et evidentissimas.~] Luc. c their testimony unequivocal 3' evid. ' the terms in which that testimony is conveyed, unambiguous.' — So that they may be compared to some of those beautiful orbs above us 5 which are not only luminous, but exposed to view.

y See above, Sect. xiv. Stat ibi. e qui vigent,' ' in statu suo manent,' s incolumes sunt,' ' dignitatem suam retinent ;' nonnunquam stare dicuntur : opposed to { concido 3' ( loses none of its authority here.' doned, and ranked amongst those fables, which sec.xvi. Paul condemns Christians for wrangling about.2 For, if it belong to Christians and to the Scriptures, it ought to be clear, open, and evident, and just like all the other articles of the faith : which are most evident. For, all the articles, which Christians receive, ought not only to be most certain to themselves, but also fortified against the assaults of other men, by such manifest and clear Scriptures, that they shut every man's mouth from having power to say anything against them: as Christ says in his promise, (i I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist." If, therefore, our mouth be so weak in the behalf of this dogma, that our adversaries can resist it; what he says is false, that no adversary can resist our mouth. So that, we shall either meet with no adversaries, whilst maintaining the dogma of Freewill (which will be the case if it does not belong to us) ; or, if it do belong to us, we shall have adversaries, it is true ; but they shall be such as cannot resist us.

But this inability of the adversaries to resist Meaning (since the mention of it has occurred here) con- an#dexemsisteth not in their being compelled to abandon Sfthe protheir own humour/ or being persuaded either to mise> 'Ail z Christianis rixantibus."] Luther does not appear to refer to any single text explicitly, but to the many warnings of this kind, which are dispersed throughout the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. The nearest references seem to be, 1 Tim. i. 4, 6. ("Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions rather than godly edifying, which is in faith.". ..." From which some having swerved, have turned aside unto vain jangling.") 2 Tim. ii. 9,3. (" But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.") And Titus iii. 9. (" But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law 5 for they are unprofitable and vain.") a Sensu suo cedere.~] * Sensus ' is properly, ' the frame of thought, or of feeling,' whatever that be ; e the state of mind/ e Communis sensus,' which follows just below, is properly, ' the common judgment,, or feeling, of mankind 3' and is part ii. confess or to be silent. For who shall compel

the unwilling to believe, to confess their error, youradver- or fo ^e silent ? What is more loquacious than not be able vanity, says Augustine ? — But their mouth is so to resist.' far stopped, that they have nothing to say in reply ; and, though they say much in reply, yet, in the judgment of common sense, they say nothing. This is best shewn by examples. When Christ had put the Sadducees to silence (Matt. xxii. 23 — 32.), by citing Scripture, and proving the resurrection of the dead from the words of Moses (Exod. iii. 6.), " I am the God of Abraham, &c." " He is not the God of the dead, but of the living — " upon this, they could not resist, or say any thing in reply. But did they, therefore, recede from their opinion ?— And, how often did he confute the Pharisees, by the most evident Scriptures and arguments ; so that the people clearly saw them convicted, and they themselves perceived it? Still, however, they continued his adversaries. Stephen, in Acts vii.b so spake, according to Luke, that " they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit which spake in him." But what was their conduct? Did they yield ? So far from it, being ashamed to be overcome, and having no power to resist, they go mad; and, stopping their eyes and ears, suborn false witnesses against him. (Acts vi. 1 0 — 14.) See how he stands before the council, and confutes his

thence transferred to express a certain imaginary standard of judgment, or court of appeal, the voice of unadulterated and unsophisticated nature, which we call ' common sense.' b This should be Acts vi. (v. 10.) There is a good deal of confusion in Luther's reference to this history. He represents the violence with which they rushed upon him at the close of his defence (especially when he had testified ' that he saw the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God'), as having been expressed before his apprehension and arraignment, and refers the whole transaction to Acts vii. ; of which the first incidents are recorded in the preceding chapter. adversaries ! After having enumerated the bene- sec.xvi. fits which God had bestowed upon that people, from their origin, and having proved that God had never ordered a Temple to be built to him (for on this charge he was tried, and this was the point of fact at issue);0 he at length concedes, that aTemple c Reus agebaturJ] Re. ag. ' He was arraigned ; ' ed qucestione, ' on this indictment 5' this was the law-crime charged: status causes, 'the question of fact to be tried.' — Luther intimates, that his address to the council is resolvable into this main subject; *■ a defence against the charge of having blasphemed the Temple.' Such being the charge preferred against him, he repelled it, by maintaining that it was nothing criminal to speak against the Temple ;

for that was not God's ordinance. Probably, he had been led by the Holy Ghost, to aim at beating down the idolatrous attachment which the Jews shewed to their Temple, in his reasonings with those who arose and disputed with him. But it is expressly said, <( they suborned men which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God." (Acts vi. 11.) And afterwards ; "And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law." (Acts vi. 13.) — It should seem, therefore, that more was charged against him, with respect to this blasphemy, than he had really spoken. — Perhaps his defence ; or, as I would rather call it, his address ; may be correctly said to have had a broader basis than that of merely repelling a charge of having blasphemed the Temple ; viz. that of proving, that the great body of their nation had always been " resisters " of the Holy Ghost ; and by inference, therefore, that they were such now, in what they had done to Jesus. From the Patriarchs downwards, their plans and efforts had always been in direct opposition to the counsel and purpose of God, as declared to them by those in whom the Holy Ghost spake. (See Heb. i. 1, 2. Gr.) Whatever was the accusation, and however he might design to repel it, the clue to his discourse seems to be found in vv.

51 — 53. " Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost" — (not as striving in their own souls, but as testifying in those whom God sent to be his instruments for drawing out the enmity of their carnal mind) — " as your fathers did, so do ye." — On this broader basis, however, he contrives to build an answer to his own peculiar charge respecting the Temple ; by shewing, that this very Temple furnished one proof of their resistance to the Holy Ghost — their idolized Temple had not originated from God, but was man's device. It was, in fact, David's own suggestion, which he was forbidden to execute ; and was rather acquiesced in, than appointed of God (just as in the former case of appointing

part ii. had indeed been built to him, under Solomon. But then he abates the force of his concession/ by subjoining after this manner; " Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands :" and, in proof of this, he alleges the last chapter of the Prophet Isaiah, Ci What house is this that ye build unto me?" (Isa. lxvi. 1.) Tell me, what could they say now, against so plain a Scripture ? But they, nothing moved by it, remained fixed in their own sentiment. Which leads him to inveigh against them also:e " Ye uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost." ' They resist/ he says ; whereas, in point of fact, they were not able to resist. Let us come to the men of our day/ When John Huss disputes after this manner against the Pope, from Matt. xvi. 18, &c. "The gates of hell prevail not against my Church." (Is there any a king, 1 Sam. viii — xii.) ; when the honour of building it was appropriated to Solomon. (2 Sam. vii. 1 Chron. xvii.) God's Temple (not only the spiritual one, but the material fabric also) was deferred till the latter times (Ezek. xl. — xlviii) ; and Solomon's was but an abortive birth, arising from the precocity of man : the Lord giving way, as it were, to man's device, that he might shew him its instability and vanity. God instituted a tabernacle (" Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen." Acts vii. 44. &c. &c.) — a fabric more suited to the then state of his Church and nation — but the well-meaning vanity of his aspiring worshippers, would have a stately temple : as if walls and roofs could contain him ! ( ' Howbeit the Most High &c."

d Subsumit.'] I do not find any authority for this word * but, taking the general principle of the preposition sub, when used in composition (secretly, diminutively); the amplification in the text seems most nearly to express the author's meaning. ' Tandem concedit At ibi subsumit :' subs, implies ' a secret, or partial, retraction of his concession.' e Uncle et in eos.~\ In contradistinction to their fathers. f The Council of Constance, a. d. 1415. was Luther's day, and even our day, as compared with that of Christ and his first Martyr. obscurity or ambiguity in these words ?) But sc. xvn. against the Pope, and his abettors, the gates of hell do prevail ; since they are notorious for their manifest impiety and wickednesses all the world over. (Is this also obscure ?) Therefore the Pope and his partisans are not that Church of which Christ speaks. — What could they hereupon say against him; or how could they resist the mouth, which Christ had given him ? Yet they did resist, and persevered in their resistance, till they burnt him : so far were they from altering their mind. Nor does Christ suppress this, when he says, ' the adversaries shall not be able to resist.' They are adversaries, says he ; therefore they will resist. If they did not resist, they would not be adversaries, but friends ; and yet they shall not be able to resist. What is this, but to say, that, resisting, they shall not be able to resist ?

Now, if we also shall be able so to confute Free- We must will, as that our adversaries cannot resist ; even be content though they retain their own humour, and, in spite ™rt 0f vicof conscience, hold fast their resistance ; we shall tolT- Our have done enough. For I have had abundant ex- wliTnot7 perience, that no man chooses to be conquered; confess and, as Quintilian says, c there is no one who ^tself would not rather seem to know, than to be a learner :' although it be a sort of proverb in every body's mouth amongst us (from use, I should rather say abuse, more than affection), c I wish to learn ; I am ready to be taught ; and, when taught better things, to follow them. I am a man; I may err.' The truth is, men use such expressions as these, because, under this fair mask, as under a shew of humility, they are allowed confidently to say, <I am not satisfied; I do not understand him ; he does violence to the Scriptures; he is an obstinate assertor:' because they are sure, forsooth, that no one can suspect such part ii. humble souls, as theirs, of being pertinacious in