PART I. ERASMUS' PREFACE REVIEWED.

PART I. ERASMUS' PREFACE REVIEWED.

SECTION 1. Assertions defended.

I WOULD begin with passing rapidly through some chapters of your Preface, by which you sink our cause and set up your own. And first, having already found fault with me in other publications, for being so positive and inflexible in my assertions, in this you declare yourself to be so little pleased with my assertions, that you would be ready to go over and side with the Sceptics on any subject in which the inviolable authority of the divine Scriptures, and the decrees of the Church, would allow you to do so. Indeed, on all occasions, you willingly submit your own judgment to that of the Church, whether you understand what she prescribes or not. This is the temper you like.

I give you credit, as I should, for speaking with a benevolent mind which loves peace; but if another man were to say so, I would perhaps inveigh against him, as is my way. I would not, however, allow even you, though writing with the best intention, to indulge so erroneous an opinion.

For it is not the property of a Christian mind to be displeased with assertions — indeed, a man must be absolutely pleased with assertions, or he will never be a Christian. Now, that we may not mock each other with vague words, I call 'adhering with constancy, affirming, confessing, maintaining, and invincibly persevering,' an ASSERTION. Nor do I believe that the word 'assertion' means anything else, either as it is used by the Latins, or in our own age. Again, I confine 'assertion' to those things which have been delivered by God to us in the sacred writings. We do not want Erasmus, or any other Master, to teach us in doubtful matters, or in matters that are unprofitable and unnecessary, those assertions which are not only foolish but even impious — those very strifes and contentions which Paul more than once condemns. Nor do I assume that you speak of them in this place, unless by adopting the manner of a ridiculous

Orator, you have chosen to presume one subject of debate and discuss another (like the one who harangued the Rhombus); or with the madness of an impious Writer, you are contending that the article of Freewill is dubious or unnecessary.

We Christians disclaim all intercourse with the Sceptics and Academics, but we admit into our family asserters who are twofold more obstinate than even the Stoics themselves. How often the Apostle Paul demands that Plerophory, or most assured and most tenacious 'assertion' of what our conscience believes! In Romans 10 he calls it 'confession,' saying,

"and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation." (Rom 10.10.) And Christ says, "He who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father." (Mat 10.32.) Peter commands us to give a reason for the hope that is in us. (1Pet 3.15.) And what need is there for many words? Nothing is more notorious and more celebrated among Christians than Assertion. Take away assertions, and you take away Christianity.

Indeed, the Holy Ghost is given to them from heaven, that He may glorify Christ and confess him even unto death. Unless this is not asserting: to die for confessing and asserting! In short, the Spirit is such an assertor that He even goes out as a champion to invade the world, and reprove it of sin, as though he would provoke it to fight. And Paul commands

Timothy to "rebuke, and to be instant out of season." (Joh 16.8; 2Tim 4.2) But what a droll sort of rebuker he would be, who neither assuredly believes, nor with constancy asserts, the truth which he rebukes others for rejecting. I would send the fellow to Anticyra. But I am far more foolish myself, in wasting words and time on a matter that is clearer than the sun. What Christian would endure that assertions should be despised? This would be nothing else but a denial of all religion and piety at once; or an assertion that neither religion, nor piety, nor any dogma of the faith, is of the least moment. And why, I ask, do you also deal in assertions?

You say, 'I am not pleased with assertions, and I like this temper better than its opposite.'

But you would be understood to mean nothing about confessing Christ and his dogmas in this place. I thank you for the hint, and out of kindness to you, I will recede from my right and from my practice, and will forbear to judge your intention, reserving such judgment for another time, or for other topics. Meanwhile, I advise you to correct your tongue and your pen, and hereafter to abstain from such expressions. For however sound and pure your mind may be, your speech (which is said to be the image of the mind) is not so. For if you judge the cause of Freewill to be one which it is not necessary to understand, and to be no part of Christianity, then you speak correctly; but your judgment is profane. On the contrary, if you judge it to be necessary, then you speak profanely and judge correctly.

But then, there is no room for these mighty complaints and exaggerations about useless assertions and contentions: for what have these to do with the question at issue?

SECT. 2. Erasmus shown to be a But what do you say to those words of yours in which you speak not of the cause of Freewill only, but of all religious dogmas in general — 'that if the inviolable authority of the divine writings and the decrees of the Church allowed it, you would go over and side with the Sceptics, so displeased are you with assertions.'

What a Proteus is in those words, 'inviolable authority and decrees of the Church!' — as if you had a great reverence, truly, for the Scriptures and for the Church, but hint that you wished you were at liberty to become a Sceptic. What Christian would speak this way? If you say this about useless dogmas concerning matters of indifference, what novelty is there in this? In such cases, who does not desire the licence of the Sceptical profession?

Indeed, what Christian does not, in point of fact, freely use this licence to condemn those who are the sworn captives of any particular sentiment?

Unless (as your words almost express) you account Christians, in the main, to be the sort whose doctrines have no value, though they are foolish enough to jangle about them, and to fight the battle of counterassertion! If on the contrary, you speak of necessary doctrines, what assertion can be more impious than for a man to say that he wishes to be at liberty to assert nothing in such cases? A Christian would rather say, 'I am so far from delighting in the sentiment of the Sceptics that, wherever the infirmity of my flesh allows me, I would not only adhere firmly to the word of God, asserting what it asserts, but I would even wish to be as confident as possible in matters that are not necessary, and which fall outside the limits of Scripture assertion. For what is more wretched than uncertainty?

Again, what shall we say to these words subjoined to it: 'to which in all things I willingly submit my judgment, whether I understand what they prescribe, or not?' What is this that you say, Erasmus? Is it not enough to have submitted your judgment to Scripture? Do you also submit it to the decrees of the Church? What, has she the power to decree what the Scripture has not decreed? If so, then what becomes of liberty, and of the power of judging those dogmatists, as Paul writes in 1Cor 14.29, "Let the others judge"? It seems that you do not like that there should be a judge set over the decrees of the Church; but Paul enjoins it. What is this new devotedness and humility of yours, that you take away from us (as far as your example goes) the power of judging the decrees of men, and submit yourself to men, blindfolded? Where does the divine Scripture impose this on us? Then again, what Christian would so commit the injunctions of Scripture and of the Church to the winds, as to say, 'whether I understand what they prescribe or not'?

You submit yourself, and yet you do not care whether you apprehend what you profess, or not. But a Christian is accursed if he does not apprehend with assurance, the things that are enjoined to him. Indeed, how will he believe, if he does not apprehend? For you call it

'apprehending' here, if a man assuredly receives an affirmation, and does not doubt it like a Sceptic. Otherwise, what is there that any man can apprehend in any creature, if 'to apprehend a thing' is to 'perfectly know and discern it'? Besides, there would then be no place for a man to apprehend some things, and not to apprehend some things, at the same time, in the same substance. But if he has apprehended one thing, then he must have apprehended all. For instance, we must apprehend God before we can apprehend any part of his creation.

In short, these expressions of yours come to this: that in your view, it is no matter what any man believes anywhere, if only the peace of the world is preserved; and when a man's life, fame, property, and good favour are in danger, he may be allowed to imitate the fellow who said, 'They affirm,

I affirm; they deny, I deny;' and to account Christian doctrines nothing better than the opinions of philosophers and ordinary men; and for which it is most foolish to wrangle, contend, and assert, because nothing but contention and a disturbing of the peace of the world results from it.

'What is above us, is nothing to us.' You interpose yourself as a mediator who would put an end to our conflicts by hanging both parties, and persuading us that we are fighting for foolish and useless objects. This is what your words come to, I say. And I think you understand what I suppress here, my Erasmus.

However, let the words pass as I have said; and in the meantime, I will excuse your spirit on the condition that you manifest it no further. O fear the Spirit of God, who searches the reins and hearts, and is not beguiled by fine words. I have said this much to deter you from hereafter loading our cause with charges of positiveness and inflexibility. For upon this plan, you only show that you are nourishing in your heart a Lucian, or some other hog of the Epicurean sty, who, having no belief at all of a God himself, laughs in his sleeve at all those who believe and confess one.

Allow us to be asserters, to be studious of assertions, and to be delighted with them. But you, meanwhile, bestow your favour on your Sceptics and Academics, till Christ has called you one also. The Holy Ghost is no Sceptic; nor has He written dubious propositions or mere opinions upon our hearts, but assertions that are more assured and more firmly rooted than life itself, and all that we have learned from experience.

I come to another head, which is a piece of this. When you distinguish between Christian dogmas, you pretend that some are necessary to be known, and some unnecessary; you say that some are shut up, and some are exposed to view. Thus, you either mock us with the words of others, which have been imposed on you, or you try your hand at a sort of rhetorical sally of your own. You adduce in support of your sentiment, that saying of Paul's, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God," (Rom 11.33); and that of Isaiah too: "Who has assisted the Spirit of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor"? (Isa.

It was easy for you to say these things, as one who knew that he was not writing to Luther, but for the multitude; or else as one who did not consider that he was writing against Luther — to whom you still give credit, I hope, for some study and discernment in the Scriptures. If not, see whether I do not extort it even from you. If I may also be allowed to play the rhetorician or logician for a moment, I would make this distinction: God, and the writing of God, are two things; no less than the Creator, and the creature of God, are two things. Now, no one doubts that there are many things hidden in God, which we are ignorant of, as He says himself about the last day, "Of that day no man knows, but the Father." (Mat 24.36) And again, in Acts 1. "It is not for you to know the times and the seasons." And again; "I know whom I have chosen."

(John 13.18) And Paul says, "The Lord knows those who are His," (2Tim 2.19) and the like. But it has been rumoured by profane Sophists (with whose mouth you also speak here, Erasmus) that some dogmas of Scripture are shut up in the dark, and not all are exposed to view. This is true; but they have never produced a single instance, nor can they produce one, by way of making good this mad assertion of theirs. Yet, by such hobgoblins as these, Satan has deterred men from reading the sacred writings, and rendered holy Scripture contemptible, that he might cause his own pestilent heresies, derived from philosophy, to reign in the SECT. 3. Christian truth is revealed and ascertained, not hidden.

I confess, indeed, that many passages of Scripture are obscure and shut up. This is not so much through the vastness of the truths declared in them, as through our ignorance of words and grammar. But I maintain that these do not at all prevent our knowledge of all things contained in the Scriptures. For what is there of a more august nature, that can yet remain concealed in Scripture, now that — after breaking the seals and rolling away the stone from the door of the sepulchre — that greatest of all mysteries has been spread abroad: that 'Christ, the Son of God, is made man;' that 'God is at the same time Three and One;' that 'Christ has suffered for us, and shall reign forever and ever?' Are these things not known, and even sung in the streets? Take Christ from the Scriptures, and what will you find in them any longer?

The things contained in the Scriptures, then, are all brought forth into view, though some passages still remain obscure through our not understanding the words. But it is foolish and profane to know that all the truths of Scripture are set out to view in the clearest light, and to call the truths themselves obscure because a few words are obscure. If the words are obscure in one place, they are plain in another. And the same truth, declared most openly to the whole world, is both announced in the Scriptures by clear words, and left latent by means of obscure ones. But of what moment is it, if the truth itself is in the light, that some one testimony to the truth is yet in the dark, when meanwhile, many other testimonies to the same truth are in the light? Who would say that a public fountain is not in the light, because those who live in a narrow entry do not see it, while all who live in the marketplace do see it?

SECT. 4. Scripture is falsely accused of obscurity.

Your allusion to the Corycian cave is therefore not to purpose. The case is not as you represent it, with respect to the Scriptures. The most abstruse mysteries, and those of greatest majesty, are no longer in retreat, but stand at the very door of the cave, in open space, drawn out and exposed to view. For Christ has opened our understanding, that we should understand the Scriptures. (Luk 24.45) And the Gospel has been preached to every creature. (Mar 16.15; Col 1.23) Their sound has gone out into all the land. (Psa 19.4) And all things which have been written, have been written for our learning. (Rom 15.4) Also, all Scripture having been written by inspiration of God, is useful for teaching. (2Tim 3.16) You and all your Sophists, therefore, come and produce a single mystery in the Scriptures which still remains shut up. The fact that so many truths are still shut up to many, does not arise from any obscurity in the Scriptures, but from their own blindness or carelessness, which is such that they take no pains to discern the truth, though it is most evident. As Paul says of the Jews, "The veil remains upon their heart." (2Cor 3.15)

And again, "If our Gospel is hidden, it is hidden to those who are lost; whose hearts the God of this world has blinded." (2Cor 4.3-4) To blame

Scripture, in this matter, is a rashness like that of the man who would complain about the sun and the darkness, after having veiled his own eyes, or gone out of the day-light into a dark room to bide himself.

Then let these wretches cease from such a blasphemous perverseness, as to impute the darkness and dullness of their own minds to the Scriptures of God, which are light itself.

So, when you adduce Paul exclaiming "how incomprehensible are his judgments," you seem to have referred the pronoun HIS to the Scripture.

But Paul does not say how incomprehensible are the judgments of Scripture, but of God. Thus Isa 40.13 does not say 'who has known the mind of Scripture,' but, "who has known the mind of the Lord?" Paul, though, asserts that the mind of the Lord is known to Christians: but then it is about "those things which have been freely given to us," as he says in the same place. (1Cor 2.10-16) You see, therefore, how carelessly you have inspected these passages of Scripture which you have cited — about as aptly as you have done nearly all your others in support of Freewill. And thus your instances which you subjoin with a good deal of suspicion and venom, are not to the purpose at all. For instance, 'the distinction of Persons in the Godhead,' 'the combination of the divine and human nature,' and 'the unpardonable sin.' Their ambiguity, you say, has not even yet been clean removed. If you allude to questions which the Sophists have stirred up on these subjects, I am ready to ask what that most innocent volume of Scripture has done to you, that you should charge her with the abuse with which wicked men have contaminated her purity? Scripture simply confesses the Trinity of Persons in God, the humanity of Christ, and the unpardonable sin. What is there of obscurity or ambiguity here?

The Scripture has not told us how these things subsist, as you pretend it has; nor have we any need to know. The Sophists discuss their own dreams on these subjects. Accuse and condemn them if you please; but acquit Scripture. If, on the other hand, you speak of the essential truth, and not of factitious questions, I say again, do not accuse Scripture, but the Arians, and those to whom the Gospel is hidden to such a degree that they have no eye to see the clearest testimonies in support of the Trinity of Persons in God, and the humanity of Christ. This is through the working of Satan, who is their God.

To be brief, there is a twofold clearness in Scripture, even as there is also a twofold obscurity: the one is external, contained in the ministry of the word; the other is internal, which consists in that knowledge which is of If you speak of this internal clearness, no one discerns an iota of Scripture, except one who has the Spirit of God. All men have a darkened heart; so that, even though they repeat and are able to quote every passage of Scripture, they neither understand nor truly know anything that is contained in these passages. Nor do they believe that there is a God, or that they are themselves God's creatures, or anything else.

According to what is written in Psalm 14, "The fool has said in his heart, God is nothing." (Psa 14.1.) For the Spirit is necessary to the understanding of the whole of Scripture, and of any part of it.

But if you speak of that external clearness, nothing at all has been left obscure or ambiguous; rather, everything that is contained in the Scriptures has been drawn out into the most assured light, and declared to the whole world by the ministry of the word.

SECT. 5. Freewill is a necessary subject But it is still more intolerable, that you should class this question of Freewill with those which are useless and unnecessary, and recount a number of articles to us in its stead — the reception of which you deem sufficient to constitute a pious Christian. Assuredly, any Jew or Heathen who had no knowledge at all of Christ, would find it easy enough to draw out such a pattern of faith as yours. You do not mention Christ in a single jot of it, as though you thought that Christian piety might subsist without Christ — if only God, whose nature is most merciful, is worshipped with all our might. What shall I say here, Erasmus? That your whole air is

Lucian, and your breath a vast surfeit of Epicurus? If you account this question an unnecessary one for Christians, then take yourself off the stage, I pray; for we account it necessary.

If it is irreligious, if it is curious, if it is superfluous, as you say it is, to know whether God foreknows anything contingently; whether our will is active in those things which pertain to everlasting salvation, or merely passive, grace meanwhile being the agent; whether we do by mere necessity (which we must rather call 'suffer') whatever we do of good or evil, what will then be religious, I ask? What is important? What is useful to be known? This is perfect trifling, Erasmus! This is too much. Nor is it easy to attribute this conduct of yours to ignorance. An old man like you, who has lived among Christians and long revolved the Scriptures, leaves us no place for excusing or thinking favourably of him.

Yet the Papists pardon these strange things in you, and bear with you, because you are writing against Luther. Men who would tear you with their teeth if Luther were out of the way, and you were to write such things! Plato may be my friend, or Socrates my friend, but I must honour truth before both. For even if you knew only a little about the Scriptures and about Christianity, the enemy of Christians might surely have known what Christians account necessary and useful, and what they do not. But you are a theologian and a master of Christians. When you set about to prescribe a form of Christianity to them, what might at least have been expected of you is to hesitate, after your usual sceptical manner, as to what is necessary and useful to them. Instead, you glide into the directly opposite extreme, in a manner contrary to your usual temper, with a sort of assertion never heard of before, to now sit as judge, pronouncing those things to be unnecessary which, if they are not necessary and are not certainly known, leaves nothing behind: neither a God, nor a Christ, nor a Gospel, nor a faith, nor anything else even of Judaism, much less of Christianity. Immortal God! What a window, shall I say — what a field, rather — Erasmus hereby opens for acting and speaking against himself!

What could you possibly write on the subject of Freewill, which would have anything of good or right in it, when you betray such ignorance of Scripture and of piety, in these words of yours? But I will furl my sails, and talk with you here, not in my own words (as perhaps I will do presently), but in yours.

SECT. 6. Erasmus' Christianity The form of Christianity chalked out by you, has this article, among others: that we must strive with all our might; that we must apply ourselves to the remedy of repentance, and solicit the mercy of God by all means. Without this mercy, neither the will, nor the endeavour of man, is efficacious. Also, that no man should despair of pardon from God, whose nature it is to be most merciful.

In these words of yours, there is no mention of Christ, no mention of the Spirit. They are colder than ice itself, so that they do not have even your usual grace of eloquence in them. Perhaps the fear of Priests and Kings had hard work to wring them from the pitiful fellow, that he might not appear to be quite an Atheist. Nevertheless, they contain some ASSERTIONS, such as, that we have strength in ourselves; that there is such a thing as striving with all our strength; that there is such a thing as God's mercy; that there are means of soliciting mercy; that God is by nature just, and by nature most merciful, etc. If, then, anyone is ignorant what those powers are, what they do, what they allow, what their striving is, what efficacy and inefficacy they have, then what should he do? What will you teach him to do? It is irreligious, curious, and superfluous, you say, to wish to know whether our will is active in those things which pertain to everlasting salvation, or is only passive under the agency of grace. But here you say, on the contrary, that it is Christian piety to strive with all our might; and that the will is not efficacious without the mercy of God.

In these words, it is plain, you assert that the will does something in matters which pertain to everlasting salvation, since you suppose it to strive. On the other hand, you assert that it is passive, when you say that it is inefficacious without the mercy of God. However, you do not explain how far that activity and passiveness should be understood to extend.

Thus, you do what you can to make us ignorant of what is the efficacy of our own will, and what is the efficacy of the mercy of God, in that very place in which you teach us what is the conjoint efficacy of both. That prudence of yours, by which you have determined to keep clear of both parties, and to emerge in safety between Scylla and Charybdis, so whirls you round and round in its vortex, that being overwhelmed with waves and confounded with fears in the midst of the passage, you assert all that you deny, and you deny all that you assert.

SECT. 7. Erasmus' theology exposed by similes.

I will expose your theology to you, by two or three similes. What if a man, setting about to make a good poem or speech, were not to consider or inquire what sort his genius is; what he is equal to, and what he is not; what the subject which he has taken in hand requires. Rather, he altogether neglects that precept of Horace, 'what your shoulders are able to bear, and what is too heavy for them,' and rushes headlong upon his attempt to execute the work. He thinks to himself that he must try and get it done; and that it would be superfluous and curious to inquire whether he has the erudition, the powers of language, and the genius which the task requires. What if a man, anxious to reap abundant fruits from his ground, were not curious to exercise abundant care in exploring the nature of his soil, as Virgil in his Georgics curiously and vainly teaches us. Rather, he hurries on rashly, having no thought except to finish his work. He ploughs the shore, and casts his seed wherever there is an open space, whether sand or mud. What if a man, going to war and desirous of a splendid victory, or having some other service to perform for the state, were not curious to consider what he is able to effect; whether his treasury is rich enough; whether his soldiers are expert; whether he has any power to execute his design?

Rather, he altogether despises that precept of the historian, 'before you act, there is need for deliberation; and when you have deliberated, you must be quick to execute.' He rushes on, with his eyes shut and his ears stopped, crying out nothing but "war," "war," and vehemently pursues his work.

What judgment would you pronounce, Erasmus, upon such poets, husbandmen, generals, and statesmen? I will add that simile in the Gospel, if any man, building a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has the means to finish it — what is Christ's judgment on that man?

Thus, you command us only to work, and you forbid us to first of all explore and measure, or ascertain our strength, what we can do, and what we cannot do — as though this were curious, unnecessary, and irreligious.

The effect is that, by excessive prudence, you deprecate temerity, and make a show of sober-mindedness; but nonetheless, you come at last to the extreme of counselling the greatest temerity. For, although the Sophists act rashly and insanely, by discussing curious subjects, yet their offence is milder than yours; for you even teach and command men to be mad and rash. To make this insanity still greater, you persuade us that this temerity is most beautiful — that it is Christian piety, sobriety, religious gravity, and soundness of mind. Indeed, if we do not act so, then you, who are such an enemy to assertions, assert that we are irreligious, curious, and vain. Thus you have beautifully escaped your Scylla, while avoiding your Charybdis.

It is your confidence in your own talents which drives you to this point.

You think that you can impose on men's minds by your eloquence, to such a degree that no man will be able to perceive what a monster you are cherishing in your bosom, and what an object you are labouring to achieve by these slippery writings of yours. But "God is not mocked;" nor is it good for a man to strike upon such a rock as HIM.

Besides, if you had taught us this rashness in making poems, in procuring the fruits of the earth, in conducting wars and civil employments, or in building houses — though it would be intolerable, especially in a man like yourself — you would, after all, have deserved at least some indulgence from Christians, who despise temporal things. But when you command even Christians to be these rash workmen, and in the very matter of their eternal salvation, insist upon their being incurious as to their natural powers — what they can and cannot do — this surely is an offence which cannot be pardoned. For they will not know what they are doing, so long as they are ignorant of what and how much they can do. And if they do not know what they are doing, they cannot possibly repent if they are in error; and impenitence is an unpardonable sin. To such an abyss does that moderate, sceptical theology of yours conduct us!

SECT. 8. Absolute necessity of the subject of Freewill for true piety.

It is not irreligious, then, nor curious, nor superfluous, but it is most of all useful and necessary to a Christian, to know whether the will does anything, or nothing, in the matter of salvation. Indeed, to tell the truth, this is the very hinge of our disputation — the very question at issue turns upon it. We are occupied in discussing what the free will does, what the free will allows, and what its proportion is to the grace of God.

If we are ignorant of these things, we will know nothing at all about Christianity, and will be worse than Heathens. Let the man who does not understand this subject, acknowledge that he is no Christian. Let the man who censures or despises it, know that he is the worst enemy of Christians. For, if I do not know what, how far, and how much I can, of my own natural powers, do and effect towards God, then it will be alike uncertain and unknown to me what, how far, and how much God can and does effect in me: whereas, God "works all in all!"

Again, if I do not know the works and power of God, then I do not know God himself; and if I do not know God, then I cannot worship, praise, give him thanks, or serve him — being ignorant of how much I ought to attribute to myself, and how much to God. Therefore, if we would live piously, then we should distinguish with the greatest clearness, between God's power and our own power, and between God's work and our own work.

You see then, that this question is the one part of the whole sum of Christianity! Both the knowledge of ourselves, and the knowledge and glory of God, are dependent upon the hazard of its decision. It is then insufferable in you, my Erasmus, to call the knowledge of this truth irreligious, curious, and vain. We owe much to you. But we owe all to piety. Indeed, you yourself think that all good is to be ascribed to God, and you assert this in the description you have given to us, of your own

And if you assert this, you unquestionably assert in the same words, that the mercy of God does all, and that our will does not act at all, but rather is acted upon. Otherwise, all will not be attributed to God. But a little while after, you declare that the assertion and even the knowledge of this truth, is neither religious, pious, nor salutary. However, the mind which is inconsistent with itself, and which is uncertain and unskilled in matters of piety, is obliged to speak so.

SECT. 9. Erasmus has omitted the question of God's prescience.

The other part of the sum of Christianity, is to know whether God foreknows anything contingently; and whether we do everything necessarily. This part you also represent as irreligious, curious, and vain, as all other profane men do. Indeed, the devils and the damned represent it as utterly odious and detestable. And you are very wise in withdrawing yourself from these questions, if you may be allowed to do so. But in the meantime, you are not much of a rhetorician or a theologian when you presume to speak and to teach about Freewill, without these parts. I will be your whetstone; and though no rhetorician myself, I will remind an exquisite rhetorician of his duty. If Quintilian were to say, proposing to write on oratory, 'In my judgment those foolish and useless topics of invention, distribution, elocution, memory, and delivery should be omitted; it is sufficient to know that oratory is the art of speaking well' — would you not laugh at this artisan? This is precisely your method.

Professing to write about Freewill, you begin with driving away, and casting off, the whole body and all the members of this art which you propose to write about. For it is impossible to understand what Free will is, until you know what the human will has power to do, and what God does — whether he foreknows, or not?

Do even your rhetoricians not teach you that when a man is going to speak on any matter, he must first speak to whether there is such a thing or not; then what it is; what its parts are; what its contraries are, its affinities, and the question of its similitudes. But you strip poor Freewill, wretched as she is in herself, of all these appendages, and define none of the questions which pertain to her, save the first: Whether there is such a thing as Freewill? We shall see shortly by what sort of arguments you do this. I never beheld a more foolish book on Freewill, if eloquence of style is excepted. The Sophists, truly, who know nothing of rhetoric, have at least proved better logicians here, than you. For in their essays on Freewill, they define all its questions, such as 'whether it exists;' 'what it is;' 'what it does;' 'how it is,' etc. However, they do not even complete what they attempt. Therefore, in this treatise of mine I will goad both you and all the Sophists, until you define for me the powers and the performances of Freewill 110— yes, I will so goad you, with Christ's help, that I hope I will make you repent of having published your Diatribe.

SECT. 10. God's absolute foreknowledge, flows from Erasmus' confession.

It is most necessary and most salutary, then, for a Christian to know this also: that God foreknows nothing contingently. Rather, He foresees, and purposes, and accomplishes everything by an unchangeable, eternal, and infallible will. And by this thunderbolt, Freewill is struck to the earth and completely ground to powder. Those who would assert Freewill, therefore, must either deny, or disguise, or by some other means, repel this thunderbolt from them. However, before I establish it by my own argumentation and the authority of Scripture, I will first of all engage you personally with your own words. Are you not that Erasmus who just now asserted that it is God's nature to be just, and that it is God's nature to be most merciful? If this is true, does it not follow that he is UNCHANGEABLY just and merciful — that just as his nature does not change unto eternity, so neither does his justice or his mercy change? But what is said of his justice and mercy, must also be said of his knowledge, wisdom, goodness, will, and other divine properties. If these things, then, are asserted religiously, piously, and profitably concerning God — as you write — then what has happened to you that, in disagreement with yourself, you now assert it to be irreligious, curious, and vain to affirm that God foreknows necessarily? Is it that you think, 'he either foreknows what he does not will, or wills what he does not foreknow?' If he wills what he foreknows, his will is eternal and immutable, for it is part of his nature. If he foreknows what he wills, his knowledge is eternal and immutable, for it is

Hence, it irresistibly follows that all which we do, and all which happens, though it seems to happen mutably and contingently, in reality it happens necessarily and unalterably, insofar as it respects the will of God. For the will of God is efficacious, and such as cannot be thwarted. And since the power of God is itself a part of his nature, it is also wise, so that it cannot be misled. And since his will is not thwarted, the work which he wills cannot be prevented, but must be produced in the very time, place, and measure which he himself both foresees and wills. If the will of God were such as to cease after he has made a work which remains the same — as is the case with man's will, when after having built a house as he willed, his will concerning it ceases (as it does in death), then it might be truly said that some events are brought to pass contingently and mutably. But here, on the contrary, so far is it from being the case, that the work itself either comes into existence, or continues in existence contingently — by being made and remaining in being when the will to have it so, has ceased — that the work itself ceases, but the will remains. Now, if we would use words so as not to abuse them, in Latin, a work is said to be done contingently, but it is never said to be itself contingent.

The meaning is that a work has been performed by a contingent and mutable will; but such is not the case in God. Besides, a work cannot be called a contingent work, unless it is done by us contingently, and as it were, by accident — without any forethought on our part. It is so called, because our will or hand seizes hold of it as a thing thrown in our way by accident, and we have neither thought nor willed anything about it before.

SECT. 11. Objection to the term 'necessity' admitted: absurdity of the distinction between necessity of a consequence and of a consequent.

I could have wished indeed, that another and a better word had been introduced into our disputation than this usual one, 'Necessity' — which is not rightly applied to the will of either God or man. It has too harsh and incongruous a meaning for this occasion. It suggests to the mind the notion of something like compulsion, and what is at least the opposite of willingness. Our question, meanwhile, implies no such thing. For both the will of God and of man, does what it does, whether good or bad, without compulsion, by means of mere good pleasure or desire, as with perfect freedom. The will of God, nevertheless, is immutable and infallible, and governs our mutable will — as Boethius sings, 'and standing fixed, mov'st all the rest' — and our will, wicked in the extreme, can do nothing good of itself. Let the understanding of my reader, then, supply what the word 'necessity' does not express. Apprehend by it, what you might choose to call the immutability of God's will, and the impotency of our evil will: what some have called 'a necessity of immutability' — though not very grammatically or theologically.

The Sophists, who had laboured this point for years, have at length been mastered, and are compelled to admit that all events are necessary; but it is by the necessity of a consequence, as they put it, and not by the necessity of a consequent.

Thus they have eluded the violence of this question, but it is by much 113 114 more illuding themselves. I will take the trouble of showing you what a mere nothing this distinction of theirs is. By necessity of a consequence (to speak as these thick-headed people do) they mean that, if God wills a thing, the thing itself must be. But it is not necessary that the very thing which is, should be. For only God exists necessarily; all other things may cease to be, if God pleases. Thus, they say that the act of God is necessary if he wills a thing, but the very thing produced is not necessary. Now what do they get by this play on words? Why, I suppose this: the thing produced is not necessary; that is, it does not have a necessary existence. This is no more than saying that the thing produced is not God himself. Still, the truth remains, that every event is necessary if it is a necessary act of God, or a necessary consequence. However, it may not exist necessarily, now that it is effected; that is, it may not be God, or may not have a necessary existence. For, if I am made of necessity, then it is of little moment to me that my being or making is mutable. Still, I — this contingent and mutable thing, who am not the necessary God — am made. So that their foolery (that all events are necessary through a necessity of the consequence, but not through a necessity of the consequent) has no more in it than this: all events are necessary, it is true; but though necessary, they are not God himself. Now what need was there to tell us this, as if there was any danger of our asserting that the things made are God, or have a divine and necessary nature?

So sure and stedfast is the invincible aphorism, 'All things are brought to pass by the unchangeable will of God;' — what they call 'necessity of a consequence.' Nor is there any obscurity or ambiguity here. He says in Isaiah "My counsel shall stand" and my will shall be brought to pass. (Isa.

46.10) Is there any schoolboy who does not understand what is meant by these words 'counsel,' 'will,' 'brought to pass,' 'stand'?

SECT. 12. Universal prevalence of this persuasion.

But why should these things be kept from us Christians so that it is irreligious, curious, and vain for us to search and to know them, when heathen poets and the very vulgar are wearing them threadbare, by the most common use of them in conversation? How often the single poet

Virgil mentions fate! 'All things subsist by a fixed law.' 'Every man has his day fixed.' Again, 'If the fates call you.' Again, 'If you can by any means burst the bonds of the cruel fates.' It is this poet's sole object to show that in the destruction of Troy, and the raising up of the Roman empire from its ruins, fate did more than all human efforts put together. In short, he subjects his immortal Gods to fate, making even Jupiter himself and Juno yield to it necessarily. Hence, they imagined these three fatal sisters, the Parcae, whom they represent as immutable, implacable, inexorable.

Those wise men discovered (what fact and experience prove) that no man has ever yet received the accomplishment of his own counsels; but all have had to meet events which differed from their expectations. 'If Troy could have been defended by a human right hand, it would have been defended even by this,' says Virgil's Hector. Hence, that most hackneyed expression in everybody's mouth, 'God's will be done.' Again, 'If it pleases

God, we will do so.' Again, 'So God would have it.'

'So it seemed good to those above.' 'So you would have it,' says Virgil. So that, in the minds of the common people, knowledge of the predestination and foreknowledge of God is not less inherent, we perceive, than the very notion that there is a God. Although blessed

Augustine condemns fate, with good reason, speaking of the fate maintained by the Stoics. But those who professed to be wise went to such lengths in their disputations that, in the end, their heart being darkened, they became foolish (Rom 1.22). They denied or dissembled those things which the poets, and the vulgar, and their own consciences, account most common, most certain, and most true.

SECT. 13. The exceeding temerity and mischievousness of Erasmus' pretended and boasted moderation.

I go further and declare not only how true these things are (I will later speak more at large about them from the Scriptures), but also how religious, pious, and necessary it is to know them. For if these things are not known, it is impossible that either faith or any worship of God should be maintained. For this would be a real and notorious ignorance of God, with which salvation cannot consist. For if you either doubt this truth, or despise the knowledge of it — that God foreknows and wills all things, not contingently but necessarily and immutably — then how will you be able to believe his promises, and trust and lean upon them with full assurance? For when He promises, you ought to be sure that he knows what he promises, and is able and willing to accomplish it. Otherwise, you will account Him neither true nor faithful — which is unbelief, the highest impiety and a denial of the most high God.

How will you be confident and secure, if you do not know that He certainly, infallibly, unchangeably, and necessarily knows and wills, and will perform what he promises? Nor should we merely be certain that God necessarily and immutably wills, and will perform what he has promised.

But we should even glory in this very thing, as Paul does in Romans 3:

"But let God be true and every man a liar." (Rom 3.4) And again, "Not that the word of God has been of no effect.' (Rom 9.6) And in another place, "The foundation of God stands sure, having this seal: the Lord knows those who are his." (2Tim 2.19) And in Titus 1, "which God, who cannot lie, has promised before the world began." (Tit 1.2) And in Hebrews 11, "He that comes to God must believe that God exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who hope in him." (Heb 11.6)

So then, the Christian faith is altogether extinguished, the promises of God and the whole Gospel fall absolutely to the ground, if we are taught and believe that we have no need to know that the foreknowledge of God is necessary, and that all acts and events are necessary. For this is the sole and highest possible consolation of Christians, in all adversities: to know that God does not lie, but brings all things to pass without any possibility of change; and that his will can neither be resisted, nor altered, nor hindered. See now, my Erasmus, where this most abstinent and peace-loving theology of yours leads us! You call us off from endeavouring — no, you forbid that we endeavour — to learn the foreknowledge of God and necessity, in their influence upon men and things. You counsel us to abandon such topics, to avoid and to hold them in abhorrence. By this ill-advised labour of yours, you at the same time teach us to cultivate an ignorance of God (what in fact comes of itself, and even grows on us 115), to despise faith, to forsake God's promises, and to make nothing of all the consolations of the Spirit and the assurances of our own conscience. These are injunctions which scarcely Epicurus himself would lay upon us!

Not content with this, you go on to call that man irreligious, curious, and vain who takes pains to get knowledge of these things. And you call that man, religious, pious, and sober who despises them. What else do you achieve by these words, then, but that Christians are curious, vain, and irreligious; and that Christianity is a thing of no moment at all — vain, foolish, and absolutely impious. It thus happens that, while you would above all things deter us from rashness — from being hurried into the opposite extreme, as fools usually are — you teach us nothing but the most excessive temerities and impieties, which must lead us to destruction. Are you aware that, in this part, your book is so impious, so blasphemous, and so sacrilegious, as to nowhere have its like?

I do not speak of your intention, as I already said. For I do not think you so abandoned as to wish from your heart, either to teach these things, or to see them practised by others. But I would show you what strange things a man obliges himself to babble, without knowing what he says, when he undertakes a bad cause. I would also show you what it is to strike our foot against divine truth and the divine word, while we personate a character in compliance with the wishes of others, and with many qualms of conscience, to bustle through a scene in which we have no just call to appear.

It is not a play or a pastime to teach theology and piety. In such an employment it is most easy to make that sort of fall which James speaks of, when he says, "He that offends in one point becomes guilty of all."

(Jam 2.10) For thus it comes to pass that, while we think we mean to trifle but a little, having lost our due reverence for the Scriptures, we soon get entangled in impieties, and are plunged over head and ears in blasphemies — just what has happened to you in this case, Erasmus! May the Lord pardon and have mercy on you!

As to the fact that the Sophists have raised such swarms of questions on these subjects, and have mixed a multitude of other unprofitable matters with them, such as you mention — I am aware of this, and I acknowledge it as well as you, and have inveighed against it with yet more sharpness and at greater length than you. But you are foolish and rash in mixing, confounding, and assimilating the purity of sacred truth with the profane and foolish questions of ungodly men. They have defiled the gold and changed its beautiful colour, as Jeremiah says (Lam 5.1). But gold is not to be straightway compared to dung and thrown away together with it, as you have done.

The gold must be recovered out of their hands, and the purity of Scripture separated from their dregs and filth. I have always been aiming to do this, in order that one sort of regard might be paid to the divine word, and another to their trifling conceits. Nor should it move us, that no other advantage has been gained by these questions, than that with great expense of concord, we have come to love less, while we are far too eager to get wisdom. Our question is not what advantage the disputatious

Sophists have gained; but how we may ourselves become good Christians.

Nor should you impute to Christian doctrine, what ungodly men do amiss. For this is not at all to the purpose; you might have spoken of it in another place, and spared your paper.

SECT. 14. All Scripture truth may be published safely.

In your third chapter, you go on to make us into these modest and quiet Epicureans by another sort of counsel, not a whit sounder than the two already mentioned: viz. that some propositions are of such a nature that, even if they were true and could be ascertained, it would still not be expedient to publish them promiscuously. Here again, you confound and mix things, as is your custom, so that you may degrade what is sacred, to the level of the profane, without allowing the least difference between them. And again, you fall into an injurious contempt of God and his word. I have said before, what is either plainly declared in Scripture, or may be proved from it, is not only open to view, but salutary. And it may therefore be safely published, learned, and known; indeed, it ought to be. With what truth, then, can you say that there are things which should not be published promiscuously, if you speak of things contained in Scripture? If you speak of other things, then nothing you have said concerns us: all is out of place, and you have wasted your paper and your time in words.

Again, you know that I have no agreement with the Sophists on any subject. So, I deserved to have been spared by you, and not to have had their abuses thrown in my face. It was against me that you were to write in this book. I know how guilty the Sophists are, and I don't want you to teach me, having already reprehended them abundantly. And I say this once for all: that as often as you confound me with the Sophists, and load my cause with their mad sayings, you act unfairly by me in doing so, and you very well know it.

SECT. 15. The argument, 'some truths should not be published,' is either inconsistent with Erasmus' act, or out of place.

Let us now look into the reasons on which you build your counsel. Even if it were true that God is essentially present in the beetle's cave and even in the common sewer, no less than in heaven (which reverence forbids you to assert, and you blame the Sophists for babbling so) — you still think it would be irrational to maintain such a proposition before the multitude.

In the first place, babble who may, we are not talking here about the actions of men, but about law and right — not how we live, but how we ought to live! Which of us lives and acts rightly in all cases? Law and precept are not condemned on this account, but rather we are condemned by them. The truth is, you fetch these materials of yours

(which are foreign to the subject) from a great distance, and scrape many things together from all sides of you, because this one topic of the foreknowledge of God gravels you. And having no arguments to overcome it with, you try to weary your reader by a profusion of empty words, before you conclude, 'But we will let this pass, and return to our subject.'

Then how do you mean to apply this judgment of yours, that there are some truths which should not be proclaimed to the common? Is Freewill one of these? If so, all that I said before, about the necessity of understanding Freewill, returns upon you. Besides, why do you not follow your own counsel, and withhold your Diatribe?

If you are right in discussing Freewill, then why do you find fault? if it is wrong to so do, then why do you discuss it? On the other hand, if Freewill is not one of these subjects, you are again guilty of running away from the point at issue, in the midst of the discussion, and of handling foreign topics with great verbosity, where there is no place for them.

SECT. 16. Erasmus' three examples of truths 'not to be published,' considered.

It is not that you deal correctly with the example which you adduce, when you condemn it as a useless discussion for the multitude: that 'God is in the cave, or in the sewer.' You think of God too humanly. I acknowledge, indeed, that there are some frivolous preachers who, having neither religion nor piety, and being moved solely by a desire for glory, or an ambition for novelty, or an impatience for silence, gabble and trifle with the most offensive levity. But these men please neither God nor man, though they are engaged in asserting that God is in the heaven of heavens. On the contrary, where the preacher is grave and pious, and teaches in modest, pure, and sound words, such a man will declare such a truth before the multitude, not only without danger, but even with great profit. Should we not all teach that the Son of God was in the womb of the Virgin, and born from her bowels? And what difference is there between the bowels of a woman and any other filthy place? Who could not describe them nastily and offensively? Yet, we should deservedly condemn such describers, because there is an abundance of pure words to express this substance, of which it has become necessary to speak, with beauty and grace. Christ's own body, again, was human like our own.

And what is filthier than this? Shall we then forbear to say that God dwelt in him BODILY, as Paul says? (Col 2.9) What is more disgusting than death? What is more horrible than hell?

But the Prophet glories that God is with him in death and in hell. (Psa The pious mind, then, does not shudder to hear that God is in death or in hell, each of which is more horrible than the cave or the sewer. Indeed, since Scripture testifies that God is everywhere, and fills all things, not only does such a mind affirm that He is in those places, but as matter of necessity, it will learn and know that he is there. Perhaps, then, if I were somehow seized by a tyrant, and thrown into a prison or a common sewer

(which has been the lot of many saints), I must not be allowed to invoke my God there; or to believe that he is present with me — not until I have entered some ornamented temple! If you teach us that we ought to trifle in this way about God, and are so offended with the abiding places of his essence, you will at length not allow us to consider him as abiding even in heaven. For not even the heaven of heavens contains him, 2Chr 2.6 nor is it worthy to do so. But the truth is, you sting with so much venom, as is your way, that you may sink our cause and make it hateful, because by powers such as yours, you see this [argument] as insuperable and invincible.

I confess that the second instance which you adduce, that 'there are three Gods' is a stumbling block, if it is indeed taught: but it is not true, nor does Scripture teach it. The Sophists indeed speak so, and have invented a new sort of logic. But what is that to us?

With respect to your third and remaining example of confession and satisfaction, it is wonderful with how happy a dexterity you contrive to find fault. Everywhere you are prone to just skim the surface of the subject and no more — lest you appear on the one hand, not simply to condemn our writings, or on the other, not to be disgusted with the tyranny of the pontiffs — for a failure in either of these points would by no means be safe for you. So, you bid adieu for a little while to conscience and to God, for what has Erasmus to do with the will of God and the obligations of conscience in these matters? You draw your sword against a mere outside phantom, and accuse the common people of abusing the preaching of free confession and satisfaction, because their own evil nature may incline them to indulge the flesh — maintaining that, by necessary confession, they are somehow or other restrained. O famous and exquisite harangue! Is this teaching theology? Or is it to bind with laws and kill, as Ezekiel says, the souls which God has not bound (Eze 23;

13.19). At this rate, truly, you stir up the whole tyranny of the Popish laws against us, on the ground of their being useful and salutary, because the wickedness of the people is restrained by them!

But I am unwilling to inveigh against you, as this passage deserves. I will state the matter as it is, concisely.

A good theologian teaches thus: the common people are to be restrained by the external force of the sword when they do amiss, as Paul teaches

(Rom 13.1-4); but their consciences are not to be ensnared by false laws, teasing and tormenting them for sins which God does not account sins.

For the conscience is bound only by the commands of God. So that, this interposed tyranny of the pontiffs should be entirely taken out of the way.

For it falsely terrifies and kills souls inwardly, while it harasses the body without, to no purpose. This tyranny, indeed, compels men to outward acts of confession and to other burdens, but the mind is not restrained by these things. Rather, it is exasperated to a hatred of God and of man. It hangs, draws and quarters the body outwardly, without effect, making mere hypocrites within. It is such that the tyrants who enact and execute laws of this sort are nothing but rapacious wolves, thieves, and robbers of souls. These wolves and robbers, O most excellent counsellor of souls, you commend to us again. In other words, you propose the cruelest of soul-slayers for our acceptance — those who will fill the world with hypocrites, blaspheming God, and despising him in their hearts, in order that men may be a little restrained in their outward carriage. It is as if there were not another method of restraining, which makes no hypocrites, and is obtained without destroying any man's conscience, as I have said.

SECT. 17. Erasmus neither understands nor feels the vast importance of the question.

Here you fetch a host of similes; in which you aim to abound, and to be thought very apt and expert.

You tell us, truly, that there are some diseases which are borne with less evil than they are removed with, such as leprosy and others. You also add the example of Paul, who distinguished between lawful and expedient things. A man may lawfully speak the truth, you say, to anybody, at any time, in any way he pleases; but it is not expedient for him to do so.

What an exuberant orator! But one who does not at all know what he is saying. In a word, you plead this cause as if your affair with me were a contest for a sum of money which is recoverable, or for some other very inconsiderable object. Its loss (being a thing of far less value than that dear external peace of yours) should not move anyone to such a degree that he is unwilling to submit, do, and suffer, as the occasion may require; nor render it necessary for the world to be thrown into such a tumult. You plainly intimate, therefore, that this peace and tranquility of the flesh, is far more excellent in your eyes than faith, conscience, salvation, the word of God, the glory of Christ — indeed, God himself.

I declare to you, therefore, and I entreat you to lay this up in your inmost soul: that I, for my part, am in pursuit of a serious, necessary, and eternal object in this cause. It is such and so great an object, that I must assert and defend it, even at the risk of my life — indeed, even if the whole world must not only be thrown into a state of conflict and confusion through it, but even rush back again into its original chaos, and be reduced to nothing. If you do not comprehend or feel these things, mind your own business; and give others leave to comprehend and to feel them, on whom

God has bestowed this power.

For I am not such a fool, or such a madman, I thank God, as to have been willing to plead and maintain this cause for so long, with such resoluteness, and with such constancy (you call it obstinacy) amidst so many hair-breadth escapes with life, amidst so many enmities, amidst so many wiles and snares — in short, amidst the rage and frenzy of men and devils — for the sake of money (which I neither have nor desire); or for the sake of glory (which, even if I would, I could not obtain in a world that is so hostile to me); or for the sake of bodily life, of which I cannot ensure the possession for a single moment. Do you think that you are the only person who has a heart that is moved by these tumults? I am not made of stone, or born of the Marpesian rocks, any more than yourself.

But since it must be so, I choose to endure the collisions of a temporal tumult for asserting the word of God with an invincible and incorruptible mind — rejoicing all the while in the sense and manifestations of his favour — rather than be crushed to pieces by the intolerable torments of an eternal tumult as one of the victims of God's wrath. The Lord grant that your mind not be like Epicurus (I hope and wish He may!); but your words sound as though you consider the word of God and a future state to be mere fables. By virtue of the doctorial authority with which you are invested, you wish to propose to us that, in order to please pontiffs and princes, or to preserve this dear peace of yours, we should submit ourselves; and if occasion requires it, we should relinquish for a while the use of the word of God, as sure as that word is — even though, by such a relinquishment, we relinquish God, faith, salvation, and every Christian possession. How much better Christ advises us, to despise the whole world rather than do this! Joh 12.25

SECT. 18. Peace of the world disturbed, is no argument against a dogma, but for it.

But you say such things, because you do not read, or do not observe, that this is the most constant fortune of the word of God: to have the world in a state of tumult because of it. Christ explicitly asserts this when he says,

"I have not come to send peace, but a sword." (Mat 10.34) And in Luke, "I have come to send fire on the earth." (Luk 12.49) And Paul (2Cor 6.5) "In seditions," etc. And the Prophet testifies the same thing in the second

Psalm, with great redundancy, when he asserts that the nations are in a tumult, that the people murmur, that kings rise up, that princes take counsel together against the Lord and against his Christ. It is as if he had said, numbers, grandeur, riches, power, wisdom, justice, and whatever is exalted in the world, opposes itself to the word of God. In the Acts of the Apostles, see what happens in the world just through Paul's preaching

(not to mention the other Apostles), how he singly and solely stirs up both Gentiles and Jews; or as his enemies affirm in that same place, how he troubles the whole world. The kingdom of Israel is troubled under the ministry of Elijah, as king Ahab complains. What a stir there was under the other Prophets! — while the Jews were all being slain with the sword, or stoned; while Israel was led captive into Assyria, and Judah was likewise led into Babylon. Was this peace? The world and its god neither can nor will endure the word of the true God; the true God neither will nor can be silent. When these two Gods are at war, what can there be but tumult throughout the world?

The wish to hush these storms is nothing but a wish to take the word of God out of the way, and stay the course. For the word of God comes for the very purpose of changing and renewing the world, as often as it comes. Even Gentile writers bear witness that change cannot occur without commotion and tumult, indeed, without blood.

It is the part of a Christian, now-a-days, to await and endure these things with presence of mind. As Christ says, "When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be afraid, for these things must first occur, but the end is not just yet." I, for my part, would say that if I do not see these tumults, then the word of God is not in the world. But seeing them, I rejoice in my heart and disdain them, being most sure that the kingdom of the Pope and his adherents is about to fall. For the word of God, which is now running in the world, has especially invaded this kingdom. To be sure, I see you, my Erasmus, complaining of these tumults in many of your publications, and mourning over the loss of peace and concord.

Moreover, by many expedients you try to cure this disorder, with good intention, as I truly believe; but this is a sort of gout, which mocks your healing hands. For here, to use your own expression, you are in truth sailing against the stream; indeed, you are extinguishing fire with stubble. Cease to complain; cease to play the physician. This confusion is of God in its origin, and in its progress; nor will it cease till it has made all the adversaries of the word like the mire of the streets. But it is a lamentable thing that it should be necessary to admonish you about these things — you who are as great a theologian as a scholar — for you ought to be filling the place of a master.

This, then, is the proper application of your aphorism (a very excellent one, though you misapply it), that 'some diseases are borne with less evil, than removed.' Let all those tumults, commotions, troubles, seditions, divisions, discords, wars, and whatever other things of this kind— with which, for the sake of the word of God, the whole world is shaken and clashed in conflict — be called diseases that are better borne, than cured.

These things being temporal, I say, are borne with less mischief than old habits of evil by which all souls must perish, unless they are changed through the word of God. So that, by taking this word of God away, you take away eternal blessings — God, Christ, the Spirit. But how much better it would be to lose the world, than to lose the Creator of the world, who can create innumerable worlds afresh, and who is better than an infinity of worlds! For what comparison is there between temporal and eternal things? Much rather, then, is this leprosy of temporal evils to be borne, than at the expense of the slaughter and eternal damnation of all the souls in the world, the world should be pacified and cured of all these tumults by their blood and destruction — since one soul cannot be redeemed by paying the whole world for its ransom.

You have many beautiful and excellent similes and aphorisms. But when you come to sacred subjects, you apply them childishly, and even perversely. For you crawl on the ground, and have no thought of anything which is beyond mere human conception. Now, the things which God does are neither childish, nor civil, nor human things; but things of God, which exceed all human conception. For example, you do not see that these tumults and divisions are marching through the world by divine counsel and operation, and you are afraid that the skies will fall. But I, on the other hand (thanks be to God!), see good in these storms. That is because I see other and greater things in the world to come, compared with which, these things seem like the whispers of a gentle breeze, or the murmur of a soft-flowing stream.

SECT. 19. Doubts whether the dogma of free confession is scriptural. The Pope and God cannot be obeyed conjointly. The people must be left to abuse.

But you either deny, or profess not to know, that our dogma of free confession and satisfaction, is the Word of God.

This is another question. We, however, know and are sure, both that it is the word of God, and it is that word by which Christian liberty is maintained in order that we may not allow ourselves to be entrapped into servitude by human traditions and laws. This is a point which I have abundantly proved elsewhere. And if you have a mind to test it, I am ready to plead in supp0rt of it, even at your judgment seat, or to debate it with you. Many books of ours are before the public upon these questions. You say, 'Still, however, the laws of the pontiffs ought to be suffered and to be observed equally with the divine laws, out of love — if both the eternal salvation of men, through the word of God, and the peace of the world, may thus be made to subsist together without tumult.'

I have said before that this cannot be. The prince of this world does not suffer the laws of his Pope and his cardinals to be maintained consistent with liberty. Rather, he has it in his mind to entrap and enchain men's consciences by them. The true God cannot endure this. Thus it is, that the word of God and the traditions of men, are opposed to each other with an implacable discord — no different than that with which God himself and Satan oppose each other.

The one undoes the works and subverts the dogmas of the other, like two kings laying waste each other's kingdom. "He that is not with me is against me," says Christ. Mat 12.30

Now, with respect to your 'fear that the multitude, who are prone to crimes, will abuse such liberty' — this must be classed among those disturbances we have been speaking of as a part of that temporal leprosy which is to be tolerated; of that evil which is to be endured. Nor are these persons of so great account that the word of God should be given up in order to restrain their abuse of it. If all cannot be saved, still, some are saved for whose sake the word of God is given — these will love it more fervently, and consent to it more reverently. And what evils, I ask, have wicked men not done even before this, when there was no word of God?

Rather, what good did they do? Has the world not forever overflowed with war, fraud, violence, discord, and all manner of wickedness, so that Micah compares the very best among them to a thorn? (Mic 7.4) What would he call the rest, do you think? Now, indeed, it begins to be imputed to the promulgation of the Gospel, that the world is wicked — because through the good Gospel it becomes more truly apparent how wicked the world was while it lived in its own darkness, without the Gospel. So too, since letters have flourished, illiterate men attribute to literature the fact that their ignorance has become notorious. Such are the thanks we render to the word of life and salvation! We may imagine, then, what fear must have been kindled among the Jews, when the Gospel absolved all men from the law of Moses!

SECT. 20. Erasmus' counsel about persons, time, and place, is pernicious.

What degree of licence did this prodigious liberty not seem to hereby concede to wicked men? But the Gospel was not therefore withheld.

Wicked men were left to their own ways, and the godly were charged not to use their liberty as an occasion for the flesh. (Gal. 5.13)

Nor does that part of your counsel or remedy stand good, where you say, 'It is lawful to declare the truth among any persons, at any time, and in any manner, but it is not expedient.' And to prove this, you very absurdly adduce Paul's words, "All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient." (1Cor 6.12)

Paul is not speaking here about doctrine, or about teaching the truth, as you would represent him to do. You are confounding his words, and drawing them wherever you please, No, he would have the truth proclaimed everywhere, at any time, by any means, even rejoicing that Christ is preached out of envy. And he expressly testifies in the very words that he rejoices if Christ is preached by any means. Paul is speaking about the practice and use of doctrine — to wit, of those vaunters of Christian liberty who, "seeking their own" did not care what stumbling-blocks they made, and what offences they occasioned by them for the weak.

The true doctrine is to be preached always, openly, steadily, never to be turned aslant, never to be concealed: for there is no occasion of stumbling in it: 'tis the rod of straightness. And who ever empowered you, or gave you the right, to bind Christian doctrine to places, persons, times, and cases, when Christ wills it to be published, and to reign in the world with the most perfect freedom? "For the word of God is not bound," says Paul, (2Tim 2.9) and will Erasmus bind it? Nor has God given us a word to select particular places, persons, and times, since

Christ says, "Go into all the world." He does not say, 'Go to a certain place, and do not go to a certain place,' as Erasmus speaks. Again;

"Preach the Gospel to every creature." (Mark 16.15) He does not say, 'Preach it to some, and do not preach it others.' In short, you prescribe the acceptance of persons, acceptance of places, and acceptance of manner — that is to say, TIME-SERVINGS — in ministering the word of God.

Whereas, this is one great part of the glory of the word: that "there is no acceptance of persons" (as Paul says), and "God does not respect persons." You see again how rashly you make war upon the word of God, as though you preferred your own thoughts and counsels far above it.

If we were now to request you to distinguish times, persons, and modes of speaking the truth for us, when would you determine them? The world would have laid its end to sleep, and time be no more, before you fixed on a single sure rule. Meanwhile, what becomes of the teacher's office?

Where will we find the souls who are to be taught? Indeed, how is it possible for you to lay down any sure rule, when you do not know any criteria by which to estimate persons, times, and modes of speech? But even if you assuredly knew them, you would still be ignorant of the hearts of men. Unless, of course, you were to choose to adopt this standard for your manner of speaking, and for your time and person: 'teach the truth, so that the Pope will not be indignant, so that Caesar will not be angry, so that the cardinals and princes are not displeased; and provided further, that there are no tumults or commotions in the world, and the multitude are not stumbled by it, and made worse.'

You have already seen, what sort of a counsel this is. But you choose to play the rhetorician in this manner, with idle words, because you must say something.

How much better it would be for us wretched men to give to God, who knows all hearts, the glory of prescribing the manner, persons, and times of speaking the truth! He knows 'what,' 'when,' 'how,' and 'to whom,' we ought to speak; and his injunction is that his Gospel, which is necessary to all, should know no limits of time or place, but should be preached to all men, at all times, and in all places. I have already shown that the things set forth in the Scripture are such as lie exposed to the view of all men; such as, whether we will or not, must be spread abroad among the common people; and such as are salutary. This is what you yourself also maintained in your Paraclesis, when you gave better counsel than you do now. Let us leave it to those who are unwilling for souls to be redeemed

(such as the Pope and his myrmidons 141), to bind the word of God, and shut men out from eternal life and the kingdom of heaven; neither entering in themselves, nor allowing others to enter in Mat 23.13 — whose mad rage you, Erasmus, are perniciously serving by this suggestion of yours.

SECT. 21. The Fathers are not to be set on a level with Christ; their decisions have no authority but from the word.

With the same sort of wariness, in the next place, you suggest that we should not make public declarations in opposition to anything which may have been determined wrongly in general councils, lest we give a handle for despising the authority of the Fathers.

This you say to please the Pope, who hears it with more pleasure than he does the Gospel. He is ungrateful in the extreme if he does not, in return, honour you with a cardinal's hat and revenues! Meanwhile, what is to become of those souls who have been fettered and slain by the unrighteous decree? Is this nothing to you?

Why, you always feel, or pretend to feel, that the statutes of men may be observed without any danger, in coincidence with the pure word of God.

If they could, I would readily accord with this proposition of yours. So then, if you are still ignorant, I will again inform you that 'human statutes cannot be observed in conjunction with the word of God.' For the former statutes bind men's consciences; the latter word looses them; and they fight one another like fire and water, unless the former are kept freely — that is, as unbinding statutes. This is a thing very contrary to the Pope's will. And it must be so, unless he wishes to destroy and put an end to his own kingdom, which is only kept by ensnaring and fettering men's consciences, while the Gospel declares them to be free. The authority of the Fathers, then, must be set aside, and all bad decrees must be torn in pieces, and thrown to the dogs. I include with these, all such determinations that are not warranted by the word of God; for Christ's authority is of another sort than that of the Fathers. In short, if your statement comprehends the word of God, then it is a wicked one. If it is confined to other writings, then your verbose discussion of the sentiment which you recommend is nothing to me; my assertions respect the word

SECT. 22. Injuriousness of certain paradoxes, 'all things are by necessity;' 'God is all in all.'

In the last part of your Preface, you seriously dissuade us from this sort of doctrine, and fancy that you have almost succeeded. What is more injurious, you ask, than that this paradox be published to the world: that whatever is done by us is not done by Freewill, but by mere necessity?

And what of that saying of Augustine's, that 'God works both good and evil in us; that he rewards his own good works in us, and punishes his own bad works in us'? Here you are rich in giving, or rather, in demanding reasons. What window will this saying open to impiety, if it is commonly published among men? What wicked man will correct his life?

Who will think he is loved by God? Who will strive against his flesh?

I am surprised that in this mighty vehemence and agony of yours, you did not remember your cause, and ask, What then will become of Freewill?

Let me also become a speaker in my turn, Erasmus, and I will ask you this: If you account these paradoxes to be the invention of men, then why dispute? Why boil with rage? Whom are you opposing them? Is there a man in all the world, today, who has more vehemently inveighed against the dogmas of men, than Luther has done? So that, this admonition of yours is nothing to me. But, if you believe these paradoxes to be the word of God, then what face have you? What modesty have you? Where is now — I will not say that usual sobriety of Erasmus, but — that fearful reverence which is due to the true God, when you assert, that nothing can be affirmed more unprofitably than this word of God? What! I suppose your Creator is to learn from his creature what is useful to be preached, and what is not? Yes, this foolish and ill-advised God, has not known up to now what is expedient to be taught. But now at last his master Erasmus will prescribe to him the manner in which he would be wise, and in which he should deliver his commands! Truly, God would have been ignorant if you had not taught him that your inference follows upon His paradox!

If God, then, has been willing to have such things spoken openly and spread abroad among the common people, without regard to consequences, then who are you that you should forbid him?

Paul the Apostle explicitly declares the same things in his Epistle to the Romans, open-mouthed — not in a corner, but publicly and before the whole world, in even harsher words. He says, "Whom he will, he hardens." (Rom 9.18.) And again, "God willing to make his wrath known."

(Rom 9.22) What is harsher — to the flesh, I mean — than that saying of Christ, "Many are called, but few chosen." (Mat 22.14) And again, "I know whom I have chosen." (Joh 13.18) All these sayings, truly, if we listen to your suggestions, are among the most injurious that can be conceived, because they are the instruments by which ungodly men fall gradually into desperation, hatred of God, and blasphemy.

Here, as I perceive it, you reckon that the truth and usefulness of Scripture are to be weighed and decided by the judgment of men, and these men are none other than the most ungodly. So that, whatever they are pleased with and consider tolerable, that is true, divine, and salutary.

And what is otherwise in their eyes, is straightway useless, false, and pernicious. What do you propose by this counsel, but that God's words should be dependent on the will and authority of men, so as to stand or fall by them? Whereas the Scripture, on the other hand, says that everything stands or falls by the will and authority of God. Indeed, that "all the earth must keep silence before the face of the Lord." (Hab 2.20)

To speak as you do, a man must imagine the living God is nothing but some light and ignorant sort of Ranter, declaiming in a rostrum — whose words you are at liberty, if you choose, to interpret anyhow you please, accepting or rejecting them according to the emotions or affections which you see produced by them in wicked men.

You clearly show here, my Erasmus, how sincere you were before, in persuading us to respect the awful majesty of the divine judgments.

When the question was about the dogmas of Scripture, there was no need to call for reverence towards them on the ground of their being shut up and hidden from view, because there are none of this sort. In words of great solemnity, you threatened us with Corycian caves, lest we break in curiously. This nearly deterred us by fear, from reading Scripture at all

— that very Scripture which Christ and his Apostles, and elsewhere even your own pen, so greatly urge and persuade us to study! But here, when we have actually arrived not only at the dogmas of Scripture, and at the Corycian cave, but truly at the awful secrets of the divine majesty — to wit, why God works in the manner which has been mentioned — here, I say, you break through bolts and bars, and rush forwards with all but blasphemies in your mouth, showing all possible indignation against God, because you are not permitted to see the design and arrangement of such a judgment of His!

Why do you not also pretend obscurities and ambiguities here? Why do you not both restrain yourself, and deter others, from prying into those things which God has willed to be kept secret from us, and has not published in his word? You should have laid your hand upon your mouth here, revering the unrevealed mystery, adoring the secret counsels of the Divine Majesty, and exclaiming with Paul, "No, but, O man, who are you that replies against God?" (Rom 9.20)

SECT. 23. Answers to Erasmus' objectionary questions, who will take pains, etc.? Two reasons why these things should be preached.

You say, 'who will take pains to correct his life?' I answer, no man; nor will anyone even be able to do so. For God pays no regard to your amenders of life, who do not have the Spirit since they are but hypocrites.

But the elect and godly will be amended by the Holy Spirit: the rest will perish unamended. For Augustine does not say that the good works of none will be crowned, nor that the good works of all will be crowned; but that the good works of some are crowned. There will be some, therefore, who amend their life. You say, 'Who will believe that he is beloved of God?' I answer, no man will believe so, or be able to believe so; but the elect will believe so. The rest, not believing, will perish, storming and blaspheming as you do in this place. There will be some, therefore, who believe.

As to what you say, that 'a window is opened to impiety by these doctrines' — What if the disorders resulting from them are referred to that leprosy of tolerable evil, which I have already hinted at? Still, by the same dogmas, a door is opened at the same time for the elect and godly, to righteousness, and an entrance into heaven, and a way to God.

Now if, according to your advice, we were to abstain from these dogmas, and hide this word of God from men, so that each one, beguiled by a false persuasion of his safety, did not learn to fear God and be humbled, and through wholesome fear at length come to grace and love, then we would have nobly closed your window of impiety. But in its place, we would open folding doors — no, pits and gulfs — not only to impiety, but even to the belly of hell, for ourselves and for all men. Thus, we would neither enter heaven ourselves, nor allow others who were entering, to go in.

'What is the use or necessity, then, of publishing such things to the world, when so many evils seem to spring from them?'

I answer; it would be enough to say, 'God would have these things published. And as to the principles of the divine will, we have no right to ask them; we should simply adore that will, giving glory to God because He, the only just and wise one, injures no man, and cannot possibly do anything foolishly or rashly — even if it appears far otherwise to us.'

Godly men are content with this answer. But, to be lavish with our abundance, let it be replied that 'two things require the preaching of these truths.' The first is the humbling of our pride, and a thorough knowledge of the grace of God. The second is the very nature of Christian faith.

For the first, God has promised his grace, with certainty, to the humbled — that is, to those who bewail themselves in self-despair. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he knows that his salvation lies altogether beyond and out of the reach of his own strength, counsels, desires, will, and works: till he depends absolutely upon the counsel, will, and work of another — that is, of God only. For as long as he is persuaded that he can do the least thing possible for his own salvation, he continues in self-confidence, and does not absolutely despair of himself. Therefore, he is not humbled before God, but goes about anticipating for himself, or hoping, or at least wishing to obtain a time, place, and some performance of his own, by which He may at length arrive at salvation. On the other hand, he who does not have the shadow of a doubt that he is wholly and solely dependent on the will of God, this man is complete in his selfdespair; this man chooses nothing, but waits for God to work. This man is next neighbour to that grace of God which makes him whole.

Thus, these things are published for the elect's sake, that by these means they may be humbled and brought to know their own nothingness, and so they may be saved. The rest resist this sort of humiliation; indeed, they condemn the teaching of this self-despair; they would have some modicum of power left to themselves. These persons secretly remain proud, and are adversaries to the grace of God. This, I say, is one reason why these truths should be preached: that the godly, being humbled, may come to a real knowledge of the promise of grace, that they may call upon the name of the Lord, and may receive its fulfilment.

The second reason for this preaching is that for faith to be conversant about things which are not apparent — to have a place for faith — all the things believed must be hidden things. Now, things are never hidden further from us, than when their contrary is set before us by sense and experience. Thus, when God makes us alive, He does it by killing us; when He justifies us, He does it by making us guilty; and when He lifts us up to heaven, He does it by plunging us into hell. As the Scripture says,

"The Lord kills and makes alive; he brings down to the grave, and brings up." (1Sam 2.6) This is not the place to discourse about this at large.

Those who have seen our books, are hackneyed in these topics. Thus, God hides his eternal mercy and pity under eternal wrath, and 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 that He is just, who of his own will, makes us necessary objects of damnation. Thus, according to Erasmus' account, God seems to be delighted with the torments of the wretched, and to deserve our hatred, rather than our love. If then, I could by any means comprehend how this God is pitiful and just, who shows such great wrath and injustice, there would be no need for faith. But now, since this cannot be comprehended, and while these things are preached and published, space is given for the exercise of faith — even as the faith of life is exercised in death, while God is in the very act of killing us.

Enough for the present, in a preface.

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, avail nothing. For if you either believe, or suspect, that these paradoxes are true (being, as they are, of no small moment), it is through that insatiable desire which men have for scrutinizing secret things. But then, most of all (when most of all we wish to conceal them), you will cause men to have a much greater desire to learn whether these paradoxes are true, by publishing this caution of yours. You will no doubt set them on fire by your eagerness. Thus, it will be found that none of us has yet given such occasion for the promulgation of these things, as you have done by this devout and vehement admonition against it. If you meant to obtain your wish, then you would have acted more prudently in holding your tongue about shunning these paradoxes.

All is over now. Since you do not absolutely deny that they are true, they cannot hereafter be concealed. Rather, by the suspicion that they are true, you will draw everybody to investigate them. Therefore, either deny that they are true, or first keep silent yourself, if you mean for others to be silent.

SECT. 24. The paradox that 'all human works are necessary,' explained and defended.

With respect to the other paradox, that 'whatever we do is done by mere necessity, and not by Freewill,' let us look a little into it here, so that we may forbid its being called most pernicious. What I say at present is this: when it has been shown that our salvation is placed beyond the reach of our own power and wisdom, and depends on the work of God alone

(which I hope to fully prove hereafter, in the body of my discourse), will it not clearly follow that, while God is not present as a worker in us, everything is evil which we do? And will it not appear that we necessarily do those things which are of no profit to our own salvation? For, if it is not we, but only God, that works salvation in us, then before he works in us, we do nothing that is profitable to our salvation, whether we will it or not. 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, as if it was forced upon him; as if someone seized him by the throat and twisted him around; just as a thief or highwayman is carried to the gallows against his will. Rather, 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 his good pleasure or his will to act; but he goes on, willing and liking. And even if he were to 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.

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 at present

I call 'a necessity of immutability' — that is, the will cannot change itself and turn another way. Rather, by being resisted, the will is provoked all the more to will, as proved by its indignation. This would not be, if the will were free, or if it possessed Freewill. Appeal to experience. How impracticable those persons are who cling to anything with affection. If these persons cease to cling, they cease through force, or the greater advantage they would derive from something else. They never cease to cling, except by constraint. Whereas, if they have no affection for the thing, they allow what may, to go forwards and be done.

So, on the other hand, if God works in us the will which has been changed and softly whispered to by the Spirit of God, again it wills and acts according to its own sheer lust, proneness, and self-accord, and is not compelled. 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 it goes on willing and liking and loving good, just as before it willed and liked and loved evil. For experience again proves how invincible and constant holy men are, while they are goaded on to other objects, by force— to the extent that they are thereby more provoked to will: just as fire is inflamed by the wind, rather than extinguished by it! So that, in this case, there is no freedom in the will to turn itself another way, nor to 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 are under the power of the god 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, 2Tim 2.26; so that, we cannot will anything but what he wills.

For he is himself that armed strong-man, who so keeps his palace that those whom he possesses are at peace, lest they 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 we willingly and cordially do this will of his, agreeably to the nature of our will. Our will, if it were compelled, would not be a Will — for compulsion is more properly Non-will, if I may say so. But if a stronger will comes upon it, and having conquered it, carries it 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 desire, 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 has mounted, it wills and goes where God pleases. As the Psalmist says, "I have become as a beast of burden, and I am ever with you." (Psa 73.22-23) If Satan has mounted, then it wills and goes where Satan wills. Nor is it in its own choice, which of the two riders it runs to or seeks as its rider; but the riders themselves contend for the acquisition and possession of it.

SECT. 25. Erasmus convicted by his own concession: the folly and madness of man's claiming Freewill.

What if I were to prove 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? Truly, if I do not succeed in this, I swear to revoke all that I have written against you, from the beginning to the end of this book; and to confirm all that your Diatribe either asserts or questions

You represent the power of the free will as something very diminutive, and altogether inefficacious without the grace of God. Do you not acknowledge this? I ask and demand, then, if the grace of God is lacking, or is separated from this little something of power, what will it do by It is inefficacious, you say, and it does nothing that is good. Then it will not do what God or his grace would have done (for we suppose here, that the grace of God is in a state of separation from it), and what the grace of God does not do, is not good. It follows, therefore, that the free will, without the grace of God, is not absolutely 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 add this unhappy appendage — that it is inefficacious without the grace of God — you will instantly take away all its power. 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 'an opposite in the adjunct.' It is as if to 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 neither warms nor burns, but is cold and it makes cold, I will not call it fire, much less hot — unless you choose to consider it as a painting or an engraving of a fire.

If, however, we declare Freewill to be that power which renders 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 to eternal death, then we would speak properly. For we also confess this power (that is, this fitness) in the will, or as the Sophists say, this disposable quality and passive adaptedness, which everybody knows is not implanted in the trees and in the beasts.

For 'God has not created heaven for geese and ganders,' as it is said.

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, choose to mean '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 later.

It follows from what has been said, that Freewill is a title which altogether belongs to God, and cannot join with any other being, save the Divine

Majesty. For that Divine Majesty, as the Psalmist sings, can and does effect all that He wills in heaven and earth. (Psa 135.6) But if this title is ascribed to men, then 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 they would speak of human power, and to leave it for God only; and having done this, to remove it from the mouth and discourse of men, claiming it as a sacred and venerable title for their God. No, but if they must by all means ascribe some power to man, then they should teach that it be called by some other name than 'Freewill;' especially when, as we all see and know, the common people are miserably seduced and beguiled by this term. They hear in it, and conceive from it, something far different from what theologians entertain in their minds, and affirm. For 'Freewill' is too magnificent, extensive, and copious a term. The common people suppose by it (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 an extent as not to yield or be subjected to anyone. If they knew that the fact is otherwise, and that scarcely a small particle of a little spark is signified by it, and that this very small particle is quite inefficacious by itself — no, that it is 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 different from our meaning. And this too, is when it is not even a settled and agreed upon thing among us yet, what we really do mean by it! For "he who speaks deceitfully," says the wise man, "is detestable;" especially, if he does so in matters of piety, where eternal salvation is at stake.

We have lost the substance which is expressed by so glorious a name; or rather, we have never possessed it. Indeed, the Pelagians would have it that we do possess it — they are beguiled by this word, as you are. Why do we so obstinately retain an empty name, to the mocking and endangering of the common people who believe?

It is 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 all the while they are almost beggars, 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 anyone; they only 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, endeavours 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 perhaps give him his? Especially if he were to do this as though in earnest, without any figure of speech such as antiphrasis or irony. So too, if he were to call someone who is sick to death, a man in perfect health, because some other healthy person might possibly make him whole, like himself. So too, if he were to call a most illiterate idiot, a very learned man, because some other learned person might possibly give him letters. It is just the same sort of thing which is said here — 'man has Free will;' yes, truly, if God were to give him His. By such an abuse of speech, any man might boast anything about himself: for instance, that he is Lord of heaven and earth — that is, if God would only give it to him. Such, however, is not the language of theologians, but of stage-players and swaggerers.

Our words should be plain, pure, and sober, or what Paul calls "sound and irreprehensible." (Tit 2.7-8) If, then, we are 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. Thus,

Freewill is conceded to man, only with respect to those substances which are inferior to himself, and not to those which are his superiors. In other words, let him know that, with regard to his faculties and possessions, he has a right to use them — of doing, and of forbearing to do — according to his own free will; even if this very right is also controlled by God's free will alone, wherever God sees fit to interpose. But in his actings towards

God, in things pertaining to salvation or damnation, he has no free will, but he is the captive, subject, and servant, either of the will of God, or of SECT. 26. Luther concludes his review of Erasmus' Preface by reducing him to a dilemma, and making short work of some of his sharp sayings.

I have said this 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 sum of these is what might be dispatched by this short dilemma. Your preface complains either of the words of God, or of the words of man. If it complains of the words of man, then it is all written in vain, and I have no concern with it.

If it complains of the words of God, then it is altogether profane. So that, it would have been more profitable to make this our question: Are the words about which we dispute, God's words, or man's words? But, perhaps the Proem which follows, and the disputation itself, will discuss this question.

What you repeat in the conclusion of your preface, does not at all disturb me, such as calling my dogmas 'fables, and useless;' that 'we should rather, after the example of Paul, preach Christ crucified;' that 'wisdom must be taught among those who are mature;' that 'Scripture has its language variously tempered 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 moreover, it brings that very wisdom among those who are mature, since there is no other wisdom to be taught among Christians, than that which is hidden in a mystery and belongs to the mature; not to children of a Jewish and legal people, who glory in works without faith.

This is Paul's meaning in 1Cor 2, unless you would have 'the preaching of Christ crucified' mean no more than sounding out the phrase, 'Christ was crucified.'

As for those expressions, 'God is angry,' 'has fury,' 'hates,' 'grieves,'

'pities,' 'repents,' — we know that none of these things happen to God.

You are looking for a knot in a bulrush. These expressions do not make Scripture obscure, or something that 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 words which even schoolboys understand. However, in this cause of ours, we are talking about doctrines, not about figures of speech.