PART IV. LUTHER DEFENDS CERTAIN

PART IV. LUTHER DEFENDS CERTAIN TESTIMONIES AGAINST FREEWILL.

SECTION 1. Erasmus has but two LET what has been said suffice in answer to Diatribe's first part, in which she endeavours to establish the reality of Freewill; and let us now consider her second part, in which she seeks to confute the testimonies on our side of the question: those, I mean, by which its existence is negatived. You will see here what a man-raised smoke is, when it is opposed to God's thunders and lightnings!

First then, after having recited innumerable texts of Scripture in support of Freewill, as a sort of army too dreadful to encounter (so that she may give courage to the confessors and martyrs, and all the holy men and women who stand up for Freewill; and may inspire fear and trembling in all who are guilty of the sin of denying it); she pretends that the host which comes to oppose Freewill is contemptible in number, and goes on to represent that there are but two passages which stand conspicuous above the rest on this side of the argument. She has nothing in her mind but slaughter, it would seem, and making sure to accomplish it without much trouble. One of these is from Exo 9.12, "The Lord hardened

Pharaoh's heart:" the other is from Mal 1.2-3, "Jacob I have loved, but Strange, what an odious and unprofitable discussion Paul took up, in Diatribe's judgment, when he expounded both of these at large to the Romans! In short, if the Holy Ghost were not a little knowing in rhetoric, there would be danger lest Paul's heart melt within him through this great reach of art, proclaiming such vast contempt for Freewill; and lest, absolutely despairing of his cause, he yielded the palm to Freewill before the trumpet had yet called the champions into the fray. Shortly, however,

I will come up as the reserve to these two Scriptures, and show my forces also. Yet, where the fortune of the battle is such that one man puts ten thousand to flight, Jos 23.10 what need is there of forces? If one text of Scripture has conquered Freewill, her innumerable forces will be of no use to her.

SECT. 2. Kills opposing texts by resolving them into tropes, which he defends by Luther's example.

Here, therefore, Diatribe has discovered a new method of eluding the plainest texts, by choosing to understand the simplest and clearest forms of speech, as tropes. In the former instance, when pleading for Freewill, she eluded the force of all the imperative and conjunctive law words by example, adding inferences, and superadding similes of her own

So now, on setting out to plead against us, she turns and twists all words of divine promise and affirmation whichever way she pleases, by discovering a trope in them: so that Proteus may be inapprehensible on both sides alike. Indeed, she demands this for herself with great superciliousness at our hands; because we also, she pretends, are prone to make our escape from the pursuer when hard-pressed, by discovering tropes.

In that phrase, for instance, 'Stretch out your hand to whichever you will; that is, 'grace will stretch out your hand to whichever she wills.'

'Make yourself a new heart;' Eze 18.31 that is, 'grace will make you a new heart,' and the like. It seems a great shame then, if Luther has leave to introduce so violent and forced an interpretation; but we may not so much as be allowed to follow the interpretations of the most approved doctors.

You see then, that our dispute here is not about the text as it is in itself; nor is it, as in former instances, about inferences and similes — but about tropes and interpretations.

'O when will it be,' as some say, 'that we get a plain and pure text, without inferences and tropes, for and against Freewill? Has Scripture no such texts? And will the cause of Freewill be forever an undecided one — one that is not settled by any sure text, but driven like a reed by the winds — because nothing is brought forwards in debating it, except a number of tropes and inferences, produced by men mutually quarrelling with each other?'

SECT. 3. Trope and consequence, when they are to be admitted.

Let us rather judge that neither inference nor trope should be admitted into any passage of Scripture, unless an evident context, and some absurdity which, in its plain meaning, offends against one of the articles of our faith, constrain us to such an interpretation and inference. On the contrary, we should everywhere stick close to that simple, pure, and natural sense of words, which both the art of grammar, and the common use of speech as God created it in man, direct us to. For if any man may, at his pleasure, invent inferences and tropes for Scripture, what will all of Scripture be, but a reed shaken by the winds, or a sort of Vertumnus? Then it will indeed be true that nothing certain can be affirmed or proved, touching any article of faith, since you may quibble it away by some pretended trope. Rather, let every trope be avoided, as the most destructive poison, which Scripture herself does not compel us to receive.

See what has befallen that great trope-master Origen in expounding the Scriptures! What just occasion he affords to the calumniating

Porphyry! Even Jerome thinks it of little avail to defend Origen.

What has come to the Arians, through that trope of theirs, by which they make Christ a mere nuncupative God? What has come to these new prophets in our day, who in expounding Christ's words, 'This is my body,' find a trope — one of them in the pronoun 'this;' another in the verb 'is;' a third in the noun 'body?'

It is the result of my observation, that of all the heresies and errors which have arisen from false expositions of Scripture, none have proceeded from understanding words in that simple sense in which they are bandied among men almost the world over; but they proceed from neglecting their simple use, and affecting tropes or inferences which are the laboured offspring of their own brain.

SECT. 4. Luther denies having used trope in his interpretation of "Stretch out" and "Make yourself."

For example; I do not remember that I ever applied such a violent sort of interpretation to the words 'Stretch out your hand to whichever you will,' so as to say, 'Grace will stretch out your hand to whichever she wills.' —

'Make yourself a new heart,' that is, 'Grace will make you a new heart,' and the like; although Diatribe maligns me in a published treatise, as having spoken thus. In fact, she is so distracted and beguiled by her tropes and inferences, that she does not know what she says about anybody.

What I really said is, when the words "stretch out your hand," etc., are taken simply, according to their real import, and exclusive of tropes and inferences, they express no more than to demand that we stretch out our hand. By this is intimated what we ought to do according to the nature of the imperative verb — as explained by grammarians, and applied in common speech.

Diatribe, however, neglecting this simple use of the verb and dragging in her tropes and inferences by force, interprets it thus: "Stretch out your hand;" that is, you can stretch out your hand by your own power: "Make a new heart;" that is, 'you can make yourself a new heart. Believe in Christ;" that is, 'you can believe.' Thus, it is the same thing in her account whether words are spoken imperatively or indicatively; if not, she is prepared to represent Scripture as ridiculous and vain. Yet these interpretations,

467 468 which no scholar can bear, may not be called forced and far-fetched when used by theologians, but they are to be welcomed, as those of the most approved doctors who have been received for ages!

But it is very easy for Diatribe to allow tropes and to adopt them in this text. It is no matter to her whether what is said is certain or uncertain.

No, her very object is to make everything uncertain; counselling as she does, that all dogmas on Freewill should be left to themselves rather than investigated.

It would have been enough for her, therefore, to get rid of sayings by which she feels hard-pressed, in any way she can. But I — who am in earnest and not in sport, and in search of the most indubitable truth for establishing the conscience of men — must act very differently. For me, I say that it is not enough that you tell me there may be a trope here. The question is whether there ought to be and must be a trope here. If you have not shown me that there must necessarily be a trope here, then you have done nothing. Here stands the word of God: "I will harden

Pharaoh's heart!" If you tell me it must be understood, or may be understood as, 'I will permit it to be hardened,' then what I hear you say is that it may be so understood; I hear that this trope is commonly used in popular discourse, as in, 'I have ruined you, because I did not instantly correct you when you were going astray.' But this is not the place for this sort of proof. The question is not whether such a trope is in use. It is not the question whether a person might use it in this passage of Paul's writings. The question is whether it would be safe for him to use it, and certain that he used it rightly, in this place; and whether Paul meant to use it. We are not inquiring about another man's use of it — the reader's use — but about Paul, the author's use of it.

What would you do with a conscience which questioned you in this way?

'Look, God the author of the book says, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart."

The meaning of the word harden is obvious and notorious. But a human reader tells me, 'to harden, in this place, means to give occasion for hardening, because the sinner is not instantly corrected.'

With what authority, with what design, with what necessity, is that natural meaning of the word so tortured for me? What if my interpreting reader is mistaken? Where is it proved that this torturing of the word ought to take place here? It is dangerous, it is even impious, to torture the word of God without necessity and without authority. Will you next tutor this labouring little soul with, 'Origen thought so?' Or thus: 'Cease to pry into such matters, seeing that they are curious and vain.' She will reply, 'Moses and Paul ought to have had this admonition given to them before they wrote; or rather, God himself. To what end do they distract us with curious and vain sayings?

SECT. 5. Diatribe must prove by Scripture or miracle, that the very passage in question is tropical.

This wretched evasion of using tropes, then, is of no service to Diatribe; but we must keep strong hold of our Proteus here, till he makes us perfectly sure that there is a trope in this identical passage, either by the clearest scripture proofs, or by evident miracles. We do not give the least belief to her merely thinking so, even if it is backed by the toil and sweat of all ages. But I will go further, and insist that there can be no trope here, but this saying of God must be understood in its simplicity, according to the literal meaning of the words. For it is not left to our own will to make and remake words for God as we please. What would be left in all of Scripture, which does not simply return to Anaxagoras' philosophy, 'Make what you please of anything.'

Suppose I were to say, "God created the heavens and the earth;" that is, 'He set them in order; but he did not make them out of nothing,' Or, 'He created the heavens and the earth;' that is, the angels and the devils, or the righteous and the wicked. Upon this principle, a man has but to open the book of God, and by and by he is theologian. Let it be a settled and fixed principle, then, that when Diatribe cannot prove that there is a trope in these passages of ours, which she is refuting, then she is obliged to concede to us. And the words must be understood according to their literal import, even if she were to prove that the same trope is most frequently used elsewhere, in all parts of Scripture, and also in common discourse. If this principle is admitted, then all our testimonies which Diatribe meant to confute, have been defended at once; and her confutation is found to have effected absolutely nothing, to have no power, and to be a mere nothing. When she therefore interprets that saying of Moses, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart," to mean 'My leniency in bearing with a sinner leads others, it is true, to repentance; but it would render Pharaoh more obstinate in his wickedness' — that is a pretty saying, but there is no proof that she ought to speak this way; and not being content with a mere 'ipse dixit,' we demand proof.

So she interprets that saying of Paul's plausibly; "He has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardens;" that is, 'God hardens when he does not instantly chastise the sinner; he has mercy when, by afflictions, he shortly invites us to repentance.' But what proof is there of this interpretation?

So too, is that of Isaiah, "You have made us err from your ways; you have hardened our heart from fearing you." What if Jerome, following

Origen, interpreted it this way: 'The man is said to seduce, who does not immediately call back from error.' Who will assure us that Jerome and Origen interpret this passage rightly? And what if they do? It is our compact that we contest the matter not on the ground of any human teacher's authority, but on the authority of Scripture alone. Who are these

Origens and Jeromes, then, whom Diatribe throws in my face — forgetting her solemn covenant — when there are almost none of the ecclesiastical writers who handled the Scriptures more foolishly and absurdly than Origen and Jerome?

In a word, such a licentious interpretation comes to this: by a new and unheard-of sort of grammar, all distinctions are confounded. Thus, when

God says, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart," you change persons and understand him to say, 'Pharaoh hardens himself through my leniency.'

'God hardens our heart;' that is, we harden our own hearts, through God deferring our punishment. "You, O Lord, have made us err;" that is, we made ourselves err through your not chastising us. Thus, 'God having mercy,' no longer signifies giving grace, or 'exercising compassion,'

'forgiving sin,' 'justifying,' or 'delivering from evil.' On the contrary, it signifies 'His inflicting evil, and punishing us.'

You will, in the end, make out by these tropes, that God had pity on the children of Israel when he carried them away into Assyria and Babylon.

For it was there that he chastised his offenders; it was there that he invited them to repentance by afflictions. On the other hand, when he brought them back and delivered them, he did not pity, but hardened them — that is, by his leniency and pity, he occasioned their being hardened. Thus, sending Christ the Saviour into the world should not be called an act of mercy in God, but an act of hardening; since by this mercy he has given men an occasion to harden themselves. On the other hand, in having laid Jerusalem waste, and having destroyed the Jews to this very day, he shows mercy towards them; inasmuch as he chastises them for their sin, and invites them to repentance. In carrying his saints to heaven at the day of judgment, he will not perform an act of mercy but of induration. For he will give them an opportunity to abuse his goodness. In thrusting the wicked into hell, he will show mercy, because it will be chastising the sinner. I ask you, whoever heard of such compassions and wraths of God as these?

Say that good men are made better by the forbearance, as well as by the severity of God. Still, when we speak of good and bad men promiscuously, these tropes will turn the mercy of God into wrath, and his wrath into mercy, by a most perverse use of speech. For they call it wrath when God is conferring benefits; and they call it pity when he is inflicting judgments. Now, if God is said to harden, when he is conferring benefits and bearing with evil; and He is said to have mercy when he is afflicting and chastising, then why is he said to have hardened Pharaoh rather than the children of Israel, or even the whole world? Did he not confer benefits upon the children of Israel? Does he not confer benefits upon the whole world? Does he not bear with the wicked? Does he not send his rain on the evil and the good?

Why is he said to have had compassion on the children of Israel, rather than upon Pharaoh? Did he not afflict the children of Israel, in Egypt and in the desert? I grant that some abuse God's wrath and goodness, and others rightly use it. But you define hardening as 'God's indulging the wicked with forbearance and kindness.' 'God's having compassion,' as not indulging, but visiting and cutting short. So far as God is concerned, therefore, he hardens by perpetual kindness; he shows mercy by SECT. 6. Erasmus' trope makes nonsense of Moses, and leaves the knot tied.

But this is the best of all, that 'God is said to harden, when he indulges sinners with forbearance, and to pity, when he visits and afflicts, inviting to repentance by severity.' What did God omit, I ask, by afflicting, chastising, and calling Pharaoh to repentance? Do we not number ten plagues as inflicted in that land? If your definition stands good — that, 'to have mercy is to immediately chastise and call the sinner' — then assuredly God had mercy on Pharaoh. Why then does God not say, 'I will have mercy on Pharaoh,' instead of saying, 'I will harden Pharaoh's heart?' For when he is in the very act of pitying him — that is, as you would have it, of afflicting and chastising him — he says, 'I will harden him;' that is, as you would have it, 'I will do him good, and bear with him.' What can be more monstrous to hear than this? What has now become of your tropes, your Origen, your Jerome, and your most approved doctors, whom the solitary individual, Luther, is rash enough to contradict? But it is the foolishness of the flesh which compels you to speak this way — sporting as she does with the words of God, which she cannot believe were spoken in earnest.

The text itself, therefore, as written by Moses, proves incontrovertibly that these tropes are mere inventions and of no worth in this place. And it proves something very different and far greater is meant by the words, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart" — over and above the bestowal of benefits, together with affliction and correction. For we cannot deny that both these expedients were tried in Pharaoh's case, with the greatest care and pains.

For what wrath and correction could be more urgent than that which he was called to endure, while stricken with so many signs and plagues that even Moses himself testifies the like were never seen! No, even Pharaoh himself was moved by them more than once, as though he repented — though he was not moved to purpose, nor abidingly. At the same time, what forbearance and kindness could be more abundant than that which so readily took away his plagues, so often forgave his sin, so often restored his blessings, and so often removed his calamities? Each sort of dispensation, however, is unavailing. The Lord still says, 'I will harden

Pharaoh's heart,' You see, then, that even if your hardening and your mercy (that is, your glosses and tropes) were admitted in their highest degree, use, and exemplification — such as they are exhibited to us in Pharaoh — there still remains an act of hardening; and the hardening of which Moses speaks must be of one sort, and what you are dreaming of must be another.

SECT. 7. Necessity still remains, and you do not clear God.

But since I am fighting with men of fiction and with ghosts, let me also be allowed to conjure up my ghost and imagine what is impossible: that the trope which Diatribe sees in her dream is really used in this passage. Thus

I may see how she evades being compelled to affirm that we do everything by God's will alone, and by a necessity that is laid upon us; and I may also see how she excuses God from being the author and blameworthy cause of our induration.

If it is true that God is said to harden us, when he bears with us through an exercise of his leniency, and does not quickly punish us, then each of the two following principles still remains.

First, man nevertheless necessarily serves sin. For, when it has been granted that Freewill cannot will anything good (and such a Freewill is what Diatribe has undertaken to prove), it is made no better by the forbearance of a long-suffering God, but is necessarily made worse, unless through the mercy of God, the Spirit is added to it. So that, all things still happen by necessity; as it respects us.

Secondly, God seems to be as cruel in bearing with men out of leniency, as he is thought to be through our representation that he hardens in the exercise of that inscrutable will of his. For, since he sees that Freewill can will nothing good, and is made worse by his leniency in bearing with us, this very leniency presents him in the cruelest form, as one who is delighted with our calamities. For he could heal them if he would; and he could avoid bearing with us if he would; or rather, he could not bear with us, unless it were his will to do so. For who could compel him to do so, against His will? If that will therefore remains, without which nothing happens in the world; and if it is granted that Freewill can will nothing good — then all that is said to excuse God, and to accuse Freewill, is said to no purpose. For Freewill is always saying,

'I cannot, and God will not: what can I do? Let him show me mercy, truly, by afflicting me; I am never the better for it, but must be made worse, unless he gives me the Spirit. This he does not give, which he would give, if it were his will to do so. It is certain, therefore, that he does not will to give it.'

SECT. 8. Diatribe's similes of sun and rain are rejected.

Nor are the similes which she adduces at all to the purpose when she says, 'As mud is hardened by the self-same sun which melts wax; and as the cultivated ground produces fruit by means of the self-same shower from which the untilled ground sends forth thorns; even so, by the self-same forbearance of God, some are hardened and others converted.'

We do not divide Freewill into two different sorts, making one to be mud and the other wax; nor one to be cultivated ground, and the other neglected ground. But we speak of one sort of Freewill, which is equally impotent in all men, and which in these comparisons is nothing but the mud, nothing but the untilled ground, seeing that it cannot will good. Nor does Paul say that God, in his role as the potter, makes one vessel to honour and another to dishonour, out of a different lump of clay; but "of the SAME lump, the potter makes," etc. So that, as the mud always becomes harder, and the uncultivated ground becomes thornier, by the sun and rain severally, even so, Freewill is always made worse by the indurating mildness of the sun as well as by the liquefying violence of the rain. If the definition of Freewill is one, then, and its impotency is the same in all men, then no reason can be assigned why one man's Freewill attains grace, and another man's does not — if no other cause is declared than the forbearance of an enduring God and the correction of a pitying one. For it is assumed, by a definition which makes no distinctions, that Freewill in every man is a power which can will nothing good.

Then it will follow that neither does God elect any man, nor is there any place left for election; but man's Freewill alone elects, by accepting or rejecting forbearance and wrath. But deprive God of his wisdom and power in election, and what do you make him but a sort of phantom of fortune, whose nod is the rash ordainer of all things? Thus, we shall at length come to this: that men are saved and damned without God's knowing it, seeing that he has not separated the saved and the damned by a determined election. Rather, bestowing on all, without distinction, first a kindness which bears with them and hardens them; and then a pity which corrects and punishes them — He has left it to men to determine whether they will be saved or damned; and God himself, meanwhile, has just stepped out, perhaps to a banquet of the Ethiopians, as Homer

Aristotle also paints just such a God for us, as one who sleeps, for example, and allows any who will, to use and abuse his goodness and his severity. And how can reason judge otherwise of God, than Diatribe does here?

For just as she herself snores away, and despises divine things, so she judges even of God, that in some sort he snores away; and having nothing to do with the exercise of wisdom, will, and present power in electing, separating, and inspiring, He has committed to men this busy and troublesome work of accepting or rejecting his forbearance and his wrath.

This is what we come to, when we covet to mete out and excuse God by the counsel of human reason. Instead of reverencing the secrets of His

Majesty — overwhelmed with his glory — we break in to scrutinize them.

Instead of uttering one single plea in excuse for Him, we vomit forth a thousand blasphemies! We also forget ourselves meanwhile, and chatter like mad people, both against God and against ourselves in the same breath — even though our design is to speak with great wisdom, both for God and for ourselves.

You see here, in the first place, what this trope and gloss of Diatribe's makes of God. But do you not also see how vastly consistent she is with herself in it? Before, she had made Freewill equal and alike in all, by including all in one definition. But now, in the course of her disputation, she forgets her own definition, and makes one a cultivated Freewill, and another an uncultivated Freewill — setting out a diversity of Freewills according to the diversity of works, habits, and characters. There is one that can do good, another that cannot do good: and it does this by its own powers, before grace is received. By these powers of its own, she had laid it down in her definition, that Freewill could not of itself will anything good. Thus it comes to pass that, if we will not leave to the will of God alone, both the will and the power to harden, and to show mercy, and to do everything, then we must ascribe to Freewill herself, the power to do everything without grace: even though we have denied that it can do anything good without grace.

The simile of the sun and rain, then, has no force as to this point. A Christian will use that simile with far greater propriety, by considering the Gospel as the sun and rain (as in Psalm 19, and Hebrews 6); the cultivated ground as the elect; the uncultivated ground as the reprobate.

The elect are edified and made better by the word; the reprobate are offended and made worse. Whereas Freewill, left to herself, is in all men the uncultivated ground; indeed, the kingdom of Satan.

SECT. 9. Erasmus' two causes for tropicizing are considered.

Let us also look into her reasons for imagining this trope in this place. It seems absurd, says Diatribe, that God, who is not only just but also good, should be said to have hardened a man's heart in order to manifest his own power by the man's wickedness. So she runs back to Origen, who confesses that God gave occasion for the induration, but flings the blame back upon Pharaoh. Origen has remarked, besides, that the Lord said,

"For this cause I have raised you up:" He does not say, 'for this cause have I made you.' No: for Pharaoh would not have been wicked if he had been the way God made him; God beheld all his works, and they were very good. So much for Diatribe.

Absurdity, then, is one of the principal reasons for not understanding Moses' and Paul's words in their simple and literal sense. But what article of faith is violated by this absurdity, and who is offended by it? Human reason is offended. And truly, she who is blind, deaf, foolish, impious and sacrilegious in her dealings with all the words and works of God, is brought in here to be the judge of God's works and words. On the same principle, you will deny all the articles of the Christian faith; for it is the most absurd thing possible, and as Paul says, "to the Jews it is a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles, foolishness," that God should become man, the son of a virgin; that he should have been crucified; that he should be sitting at the right hand of the Father.

It is absurd, I say, to believe such things. Let us therefore invent some tropes like those of the Arians, to prevent Christ from being God

494 495 absolutely. Let us invent some tropes like those of the Manicheans, to prevent his being a real man; and let us make him out to be a sort of phantom, which glided through the virgin 'like a ray of the sun through a piece of glass,' and was crucified. A nice way of handling Scripture!

And yet these tropes get us no further forward, and they do not serve to evade the absurdity: for it still remains absurd in the eye of reason that this just and good God should demand impossibilities of Freewill; and when Freewill cannot will good, but serves sin by necessity, that it should nevertheless impute it to her. And so long as he withholds the Spirit, God would not be a whit more kind or more merciful than if he were to harden or permit men to be hardened. Reason will again and again repeat that these are not the acts of a kind and merciful God. These things so far exceed her apprehension, and she so wants power to take even her own self captive, that she cannot believe God is good if he were to act and judge so. But setting faith aside, she demands to be able to touch and see and comprehend how it is that God is just and not cruel. Now, she would have this sort of comprehension if it were said of God, 'He hardens nobody, he damns nobody; on the contrary, he pities everybody, he saves everybody;' so that hell would be destroyed, and the fear of death removed, and no future punishment would be dreaded. Hence it is, that she becomes so boisterous and so vehement in excusing and defending the just and beneficent God.

Faith and the Spirit, however, judge differently. They believe that God is good, even if he were to destroy all men. And of what use is it that we are wearied to death with these elaborate speculations, that we may be enabled to remove the blame of induration from God to Freewill. Let

Freewill do what she can, with all her means and exercising all her might, she will never furnish an example of avoiding being hardened, where God has not given his Spirit — or of earning mercy, where she has been left to her own powers. For what difference does it make, whether she is hardened or deserves to be hardened, since hardening is necessarily in her, so long as that impotency is in her, by which she cannot will good; and this is according to Diatribe herself. The absurdity is not removed by these tropes; or if it is removed, then it is removed only to make way for greater absurdities, and to ascribe all power to Freewill.

Away with these useless and misleading tropes, then, and let us stick to the pure and simple word of God.

SECT. 10. That God made all things very good, is not a sufficient reason.

'The other principal reason why this trope should be received, is that the things which God has made are very good. And God does not say, I have made you for this very thing, but for this very thing I have raised you up.'

First, I answer that this was said before the fall of man, when the things which God had made were very good. But it quickly follows in the third chapter, how man was made evil, deserted by God, and left to himself. All men are born from this man, so corrupted, and thus are born wicked —

Pharaoh among the rest.

As Paul says, "We were all by nature the children of wrath, even as others." God therefore made Pharaoh wicked; that is, out of a wicked and corrupted seed. As he says in the Proverbs of Solomon, "The Lord has made all things for himself, yes, even the wicked man for the day of evil"

(not indeed by creating wickedness in him, but by forming him out of an evil seed and ruling him.) It is not a just conclusion therefore, that 'God formed the wicked man, therefore he is not wicked,' For how can it be that he is not wicked, springing as he does from a wicked seed? As he says in Psalm 51, "Behold I was conceived in sins." And Job says, "Who can make clean that which has been conceived of unclean seed?" For although

God does not make sin, still he does not cease to form and to multiply a nature which has been corrupted by sin, through the withdrawal of the Spirit — as if a carpenter made statues out of rotten wood. Thus, men are made just such as their nature is, through God's creating and forming

Secondly, I answer that if you would have those words, " very good," understood of the works of God after the fall, then observe that they are not spoken of us, but of God. He does not say, man saw the things which God had made, and they were very good.

Many things seem very good to God, and are so, which appear to us to be very bad, and are so. Thus, afflictions, calamities, errors, hell — indeed all the best works of God — are very bad and damnable in the sight of the world. What is better than Christ and the Gospel? But what more hateful to the world? How those things are then good in the sight of God, which are evil in our eyes, is a mystery known to God only, and to those who see with God's eyes; that is, those who have the Spirit. But there is no need of so subtle a strain of argumentation just yet. The former answer is sufficient for the present.

SECT. 11. How God works evil in us, considered.

Perhaps it is asked, how God can be said to work evil in us; for example, to harden us, to give men up to their lusts, to tempt, and the like? Truly, we should be contented with the words of God and simply believe what they affirm, since the works of God quite surpass all description. But in order to humour reason, which is another name for human folly, I am content to be silly and foolish, and if I can, try to move her at all by In the first place, even reason and Diatribe concede that God works all things in all things; and that nothing is effected or efficacious without him. He is omnipotent; and this pertains to his omnipotence, as Paul says to the Ephesians (Eph 1.21).

Satan, then, and man having fallen from God, and being deserted by Him, cannot will good; that is, he cannot will those things which please God, or which God wills. Men are turned perpetually towards their own desires, so that they can only seek what is their own, and not His. This will and nature of theirs, therefore, which is thus averse to God, still remains a something. Satan and the wicked man are not a nothing, having no nature or will, even though they have a nature which is corrupt and averse to God. This remainder of nature of which we speak, therefore, in the wicked man and in Satan — seeing it is the creation and work of God

— is not less subject to omnipotence and to divine actings, than all the other creations and works of God.

Since then God moves and actuates all things in all things, it can only be that He also moves and acts in Satan and in the wicked. But He acts in them according to what they are, and what he finds them to be. That is, since they are averse to Him and wicked, and are hurried along by this impulse of the divine omnipotence, they do only those things which are averse to him and wicked. Just as a horseman, driving a horse which is lame in one or two of his feet, drives him according to his make and power. And so the horse goes awry. But what can the horseman do? He drives the horse, such as he is, in a drove of sound horses; he makes him go awry, and the others go well; it cannot be otherwise, unless the horse is cured. You see by this illustration, how it is that when God works in bad men and by bad men, evil is the result; but it cannot be that God does wickedly, even though he works evil by the agency of evil men. This is because, being good himself, He cannot do wickedly.

But still, he uses evil instruments which cannot escape the seizure and impulse of his power. The fault that evil is done, therefore, is in the instruments, which God does not allow to remain idle; meanwhile, God himself is the impeller of them. It is just as if a carpenter were to cut badly by cutting with an axe that is 'toothed and sawed.' Hence it arises that the wicked man cannot help but go astray and commit sin continually; for being seized and urged by the power of God, he is not allowed to remain idle; but he wills, desires, and acts according to what

SECT. 12. How God hardens.

These are sure and settled verities if, in the first place, we believe that God is omnipotent; and in the second place, that the wicked man is the creature of God. But being averse to God, and left to himself without the Spirit of God, man cannot will or do good. God's omnipotence makes the wicked man unable to escape the moving and driving of God; but being necessarily subjected to God, he obeys him. Still, his corruption or aversion to God, makes him unable to be moved and dragged along according to good.

God cannot relinquish the exercise of his omnipotence just because of the wicked man's aversion to Him; nor can the wicked man change his aversion into good will. Thus it comes to pass that, of necessity, the man errs and sins perpetually, until he is rectified by the Spirit of God.

However, in all these things, Satan yet reigns in peace and keeps his palace in quietness, in subordination to this impulse of the divine

After this follows the business of hardening; which is done in the following way. The wicked man is altogether occupied with himself and his own matters, as I have said (and the same is also true of Satan, his prince). He does not inquire after God, nor care for those things which are God's; but he seeks his own wealth, his own glory, his own works, his own wisdom, his own power — in short, a kingdom, of his own. And what he wants is to enjoy these things in peace. Now, if anyone resists him, or has a mind to diminish anything from these possessions, then his aversion, indignation, and rage with which he is stirred up against his adversary, are no less vehement than his desire with which he pursues these possessions. And he is just as incapable of restraining his rage, as he is of restraining his desire and pursuit; and he is just as incapable of restraining his desire, as he is of putting an end to his existence. He is incapable of these, inasmuch as he is the creature of God, even though a This is the history of that rage of the world against God's Gospel. That which is stronger than the creature, to conquer this quiet possessor of the palace, comes by the Gospel. It condemns those desires for glory and riches, and for his own wisdom and righteousness — in short, everything in which he confides. This same provoking of the wicked — effected by God's saying or doing something contrary to their wishes — is their hardening and burdening.

For, though they are averse of themselves, through the very corruption of their nature, they are also turned still more out of the way, and made even worse, by being resisted and robbed under their averseness. Thus, when God was proceeding to snatch his usurped dominion out of the hands of wicked Pharaoh, He provoked him, and still more hardened and weighed down his heart. God did this by assailing him with the words of Moses, who threatened to take away his kingdom, and to withdraw the people from his dominion. Meanwhile, God did not give him the Spirit within, but allowed his own wicked and corrupt nature, in which Satan was reigning, to grow red hot — to boil over, to rage, and to attain its height, accompanied with a sort of vain confidence and contemptuousness.

SECT. 13. Mistakes prohibited.

Do not let anyone therefore think that God, when he is said to harden or to work evil in us (for to harden is to make evil), does so by creating evil in us anew, as it were. It is as if you fancied a malignant vintner who was full of mischief, to pour or mix poison in with the wine. No mischief is in his vessel; the vessel all the while does nothing itself, save that it receives or endures the malignancy of the mixer. But when many hear it said that God works both good and evil in us, and that we are subjected to the operations of God by a mere passive necessity, they seem to fancy that man is a good sort of creature, or at least he is not a bad one; and in some way such as this, he is made the subject of a bad work of God's. These persons do not sufficiently consider what a restless sort of actor God is, in all his creatures, and how he allows none of them to have a holiday. But let him who would have any understanding about such sayings, settle it thus with himself: that God works evil in us (that is, by us), not through any fault of His, but through our own faultiness.

We being evil by nature, and God being good, He hurries us along by means of his own agency (such is the nature of his omnipotence). And being good as he is in himself, He cannot do other than to work evil by an evil instrument. However, he makes good use of it (such is his wisdom), by turning it to his own glory and our salvation.

In like manner, God finds the will of Satan evil, without creating it evil.

What has become evil, through God's deserting of Satan, and through Satan's sinning — and God finding it evil — He lays hold of it in the course of his operations, and moves it wherever he will. Yet this will of Satan does not cease to be evil, just because God moves it thus. Just so,

David says of Shimei (2Sam 16.10), "Let him curse, for God has commanded him to curse David." How does God command him to curse?

Such a malignant and wicked act! There was no external commandment of this kind to be found anywhere. David must, then, regard this consideration: that the omnipotent God speaks, and it is done; that is, He does all things by his eternal word. So then, the divine agency and omnipotence seizes hold of the will of Shimei, together with all his members — that will which was already evil, and which had previously been inflamed against David. He met Shimei at just the right moment, having deserved such a cursing — and even the good God commands this curse (that is, he speaks the word and it is done) which is poured out by a wicked and blasphemous organ. For He seizes hold of that organ, and carries it along with Him in the course of his own agency.

SECT. 14. Pharaoh's case considered.

Thus God hardens Pharaoh when he presents his words and works to his wicked and evil will, which that will hates — no doubt through innate faultiness and natural corruption.

Now, God does not change this will inwardly, by his Spirit; but He persists in presenting and imposing His words and works. And Pharaoh, on the other hand, considering his strength, wealth and power, confides in them through the same natural depravity. It then comes to pass, on the one hand, that he is puffed up and exalted by his own fancied greatness.

And on the other hand, he is rendered a proud despiser of Moses, coming to him in a lowly form, and by the plainness of the word of God. Pharaoh is first hardened thus. And then, the more that Moses urges and threatens him, the more Pharaoh is provoked and aggravated — for this evil will of his would not of itself be stirred to action, nor hardened. But since the omnipotent actor drives it along by an inevitable impulse, as He does the rest of his creatures, will it must. Add to this, that at the same time, He presents from without, that which naturally irritates and offends the will.

So that Pharaoh cannot avoid being hardened, any more than he can avoid the agency of the divine omnipotence, or the aversion or malignancy of his own will. Pharaoh's hardening by God is thus completed.

He sets before his maliciousness that which, of his own nature, he hates from without. After this, he does not cease to stimulate that evil will, just as he finds it, by his own omnipotent impulse within. Meanwhile, the wickedness of his will being such, the man cannot help but hate what is contrary to himself, and to trust in his own strength. Thus he is made obstinate to such a degree that he neither hears nor has any understanding, but is hurried away under the possession of the devil, like

If this view of the case is satisfactory, I have gained my cause. We agree to explode the tropes and glosses of men, and to understand the words of God literally, so that it may not be necessary to make excuses for God, nor to accuse him of injustice. When he says, I will harden Pharaoh's heart, he speaks in plain language, as if he were to say, I will cause the heart of Pharaoh to be hardened; or, it will be hardened through my doings and workings. We have heard how this is effected: by My exciting his own evil will inwardly using that general sort of impulse by which I move all things, so that he will go on under his own bias, and in his own course of willing — nor will I cease to stimulate him, nor can I do otherwise. At the same time, I will present him with a word and a work which that evil bias of his will run afoul of. For he can do nothing else but choose ill, while I stimulate the very substance of the evil which is in him, by virtue of my omnipotence.

Thus God was most sure, and with the greatest certainty, he pronounced that Pharaoh would be hardened. He was most sure that Pharaoh's will could neither resist the excitement of God's omnipotence, nor lay aside its own maliciousness, nor receive Moses as a friend when he presented himself to Pharaoh as an adversary. Rather, Pharaoh's will would remain evil, and he would necessarily become worse, harder, and prouder, while in pursuing his own natural bias and course, he encountered an opposition which he did not like, and which he despised through a confidence in his own powers.

Thus, you see it confirmed here by this very assertion: that Freewill can do nothing but evil. This is because God — who neither mistakes through ignorance, nor lies through wickedness — so confidently promises the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. He is sure, truly, that an evil will can will only evil; and if a good which contravenes its own lust is proposed to it, his will can only be made worse by it.

SECT. 15. Impertinent questions may still be asked.

It remains therefore, that a man may ask, 'Why does God not cease from that very stimulation of his omnipotence by which the wicked man's will is stirred up to continue in its wickedness, and to grow worse?'

'This is to desire that God cease to be God for the sake of the wicked; it to wish that his power and agency cease. In fact, it is to desire that God cease to be good, lest they be made worse.'

But why does he not at the same time change those evil wills which he excites? This pertains to the secrets of his Majesty, in which his judgments are incomprehensible. We have no business asking this question; our business is to adore these mysteries. And if flesh and blood are offended here and murmur, let them murmur. It will get no further, however. God will not be changed for these murmurs. And what if ungodly men go away scandalized in great numbers? The elect will remain, notwithstanding.

The same answer will be given to those who ask, 'Why did he allow Adam to fall? And why does he go on to make all of us, who are infected through the same sin — when he might have kept Adam from sinning, and might either have created us from another stock, or have purged the corrupted seed first?'

He is God, whose will has no cause or reason which can be prescribed to it for rule and measure, seeing that it has no equal or superior, but is itself the rule of all things. If it did not have any rule or measure, nor any cause or reason, then it could no longer be the will of God. For what He wills is not right because he ought to will so, or ought to have willed so.

On the contrary, it is right simply because He wills so; therefore, what is done must be right. Cause and reason are prescribed to the creature's will, but not to the Creator's; unless you were to set another Creator over SECT. 16. The trope compared with the text.

The "trope-making" Diatribe is sufficiently confuted by these considerations, I think. But let us come to the text itself, so that we may see what sort of agreement there is between herself and her text.

It is customary with all those who elude arguments by tropes, to stoutly despise the text itself, and to make it their only labour to pick out some word and torture it with tropes, and to crucify it by the sense that they impose on it, without having the least regard to the surrounding context, or to the words which follow and precede, or to the author's scope or cause. Thus it is with Diatribe here: nothing heeding what Moses is about, or what the aim of his discourse is, she snatches this little phrase out of the text: 'I will harden' (which offends her). And she fashions it according to her own pleasure, not at all considering in the meanwhile, how it is to be brought back and inserted again into the text, and fitted in so as to square with the body of the text. This is why Scripture is not considered very clear by those most learned doctors who have had the greatest possible acceptance among men for so many ages. What wonder is it? The sun himself could not shine if such tricks were played with him.

But I have already shown that Pharaoh is not properly said to be hardened because he is endured by God with leniency, and not quickly punished, since he was chastened with so many plagues. If 'hardening' is to endure through divine leniency, and not to directly punish, then what need was there for God to so often promise that He would harden

Pharaoh's heart (as a future act), when the miracles were now being performed?

All the while, before these miracles and this hardening —having endured through divine leniency, and not been punished — Pharaoh was a man who had inflicted so many evils on the children of Israel in his full-blown pride, which were the offspring of his prosperity and wealth. So then, this trope does not at all fit the purpose here; since it might be applied promiscuously to all those who sin under the endurance of divine indulgence. At this rate, we might say that all men are hardened: since there is no man who does not commit sin; and no man could commit sin if he were not endured with divine indulgence. This hardening of Pharaoh is therefore something different from, and beyond that general endurance

SECT. 17. Moses' great object in such repeated testimonies of God's design and work of hardening, is to strengthen Israel.

Rather, Moses' object is not so much to announce Pharaoh's wickedness, as to affirm God's truth and mercy — that truly, the children of Israel might not mistrust the promises of God, by which he had engaged to liberate them. This deliverance being a vast thing, God forewarns them of its difficulty, so that their faith may not falter. They would thus know that all these things had been predicted, and were being accomplished through the arrangement of that very Person who gave them the promises. It is just as if he had said,

'I am delivering you, it is most true. But you will hardly believe it, for Pharaoh will make such a resistance, and will so put off the event. But do not trust in my promises a whit less. All this putting-off of his will, is effected by my workings, that I may perform more and greater miracles to confirm you in your faith, and to show my power, that you may hereafter place greater confidence in me with respect to all other things.

This is just what Christ also does, when he promises the kingdom to his disciples at the last supper: he foretells many difficulties — his own death, and their manifold tribulations — so that when the event had taken place, they might believe in him much more from then on.

Indeed, Moses sets this meaning very clearly before us, when he says, "But Pharaoh shall not let you go, so that many signs may be wrought in Egypt." And again: "To this end have I stirred you up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be declared in all the earth."

You see here, that Pharaoh is hardened for this very purpose: that he may resist God, and may put off the redemption of Israel, in order to make an occasion for showing many signs, and for declaring the power of God.

And it is to this end: that he may be spoken of, and believed in, throughout the earth. What else is this, but that all these things are spoken and done to confirm faith, and to comfort the weak, that they may freely trust in God from then on, as the true, faithful, powerful and merciful One? It is as if to say to his little ones, in the softest words, 'Do not be terrified by Pharaoh's hardness of heart: I am the worker of that very hardness also, and I hold it in my own hands. I who am your deliverer will use it with no other effect, than it will cause me to work many signs, and to declare my greatness, to the end that you may believe

Hence we have that saying which Moses repeats after nearly every plague, "And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, that he did not let the people go, as the Lord had spoken." What is this saying, "As the Lord had spoken," if not that God might be seen to be true, who had declared beforehand that Pharaoh would be hardened? If there had been any vertibility here, any freeness of will in Pharaoh, such that he had power to incline towards either side, God could not have foretold his induration with such certainty. But since the Promiser here is one who can neither be mistaken, nor tell a lie, it was necessarily and most assuredly to come to pass, that Pharaoh should be hardened. And this could not be, unless the induration were altogether outside the limits of man's power, and stood only in the power of God. This is just as I described it above: to wit, either God was certain that He would not omit the general exercise of his omnipotence in the person of Pharaoh, or because of Pharaoh, seeing that it is what he cannot even omit.

Furthermore, he was equally sure that the will of Pharaoh, naturally wicked and averse to Him, could not consent to the word and work of God which was contrary to it.

So that, though the impulse to will was preserved inwardly in Pharaoh by God's omnipotence, and a contradictory word and work of God was outwardly thrown to meet it, nothing else could be the result, but a stumbling and a hardening of the heart in Pharaoh. For if God had omitted the acting of his omnipotence in Pharaoh at the moment when he threw the contradictory message of Moses into his path, and if Pharaoh's will be supposed to have acted by itself alone, by its own power, then possibly there might have been ground for questioning to which of the two sides it would have inclined itself. But now, he is driven and hurried along to an act of willing. No violence is done to his will, it is true, because he is not forced against his will; but a natural operation of God hurries him along to a natural acting of his will, such as it is, and that is a bad one. It then follows that he cannot help but run afoul of the word, and by so doing he is hardened. Thus, we see that this text fights manfully against Freewill, inasmuch as God who promises cannot lie; and if He does not lie, then Pharaoh's heart cannot help but be hardened.

SECT. 18. Paul's reference to this passage in Romans 9. Diatribe is hard put to it, and obliged to yield.

But let us look at Paul also, who in Romans 9 adopts this passage from Moses. How sadly Diatribe is tormented here. She twists herself into all manner of shapes, to avoid losing Freewill. Once she says it is the necessity of a consequence, but not the necessity of a consequent. Once it is an ordered will, or a signified will, which may be resisted; whereas a will of good pleasure cannot be resisted! Once the passages adduced from Paul do not oppose Freewill because they do not speak of the salvation of man. Once the foreknowledge of God presupposes necessity; another time it does not. Once grace prevents the will — causing it to will — accompanying it on its way and giving the happy issue. Once the first cause effects everything; another time it acts by second causes, itself doing nothing.

By these and such mocking words, she only aims to get time, and to meanwhile snatch the cause out of our sight, and drag it somewhere else.

She gives us credit for being as stupid and heartless, or as little interested in the cause, as she herself is. Or as little children, when frightened or at play, cover their eyes with their hands, and think nobody sees them, because they see nobody. Even so, Diatribe, not being able to bear the rays (or rather the lightning) of the clearest possible words, uses all sorts of pretences to make it appear that she does not see the real truth — that she may persuade us, if possible, to cover our eyes, so as not to see it ourselves. But all these are the marks of a convinced mind, which struggles rashly against invincible truth.

That figment of the necessity of a consequence, as somehow differing from the necessity of a consequent, has been confuted already (Part i.

Sect, xi.). Let Diatribe invent and re-invent, cavil and re-cavil, as much as she pleases. If God foreknew that Judas would be a traitor, Judas necessarily became a traitor. Nor was it in the power of Judas (or any creature) to do otherwise, or to change his will, though he did what he did by an act of willing, and not by compulsion. But to will that act, was the operation of a substance which God put into motion by His own omnipotence, as he also does everything else. For it stands as an invincible and self-evident proposition, that God neither lies, nor is mistaken. The words under our consideration are not obscure or doubtful words, although all the learned of all ages may have been so blind as to understand and interpret them otherwise. Prevaricate as much as you may, your own conscience, and that of all men, is compelled to acknowledge that if God is not mistaken in what he foreknows, then the very thing foreknown must necessarily take place. Otherwise, who could trust His promises, who would fear His threatenings, if what he promises or threatens does not necessarily follow? Or, how can He promise or threaten, if his foreknowledge deceives him, or He can be thwarted by our mutability? This excessive light of undoubted truth manifestly shuts every mouth, puts an end to all questions, and decrees a victory in spite of all evasive subtleties. We know very well that the foreknowledge of man is beguiled. We know that an eclipse does not happen because it is foreknown, but it is foreknown because it is going to happen. But what have we to do with this sort of foreknowledge? We are arguing about the foreknowledge of God.

SECT. 19. Diatribe's concessions and retractions exposed.

Deny the necessity of the thing foreknown being effected, and you take away the faith and fear of God; you throw down all of God's promises and threatenings; indeed, you deny the very being of God. But even Diatribe herself, after a long struggle in which she has tried all her arts, is at length compelled by the force of truth to make confession of our sentiment. She says:

'The question about the will and purpose of Diatribe's God is a more difficult one. For God wills the same things which he foreknows. And this is what Paul subjoins: "Who resists his will, if he pities whom he will, and hardens whom he will?" Rom 9.18-19 For if he were a king, he would do what he liked, so that no one would be able to resist him; he would be said to do what he would. Thus the will of God, being the principal cause of all events, seems to impose a necessity upon our will.'

This is what she says. And I thank God that Diatribe has at last recovered her senses. What has become of Free will now? But this eel again slips out of our hands by saying in a moment,

'But Paul does not resolve this question; on the contrary, he chides the inquirer; indeed, but O man, who are you that replies against God?' Rom

O exquisite evasion! Is this what you call handling the word of God? — to deliver a mere ipse dixit in this manner, by your own authority, out of your own head, without producing testimonies of Scripture, without working miracles? — or rather, to thus corrupt some of the clearest words that God ever spoke? 'Paul does not resolve this question,' she says. What is he doing then? 'He chides the inquirer,' she says. Is this chiding not the most complete resolution of the question? What was in fact asked in this question concerning the will of God? Was it not asked whether he puts a necessity upon our will? Paul answers, "Thus (that is, because God does so) he has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he wills, he hardens. It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God who Not content with having resolved the question, Paul moreover introduces those who, in opposition to this answer, murmur for Freewill — who prate that there is no such thing as merit, nor are we condemned by any fault of our own, and the like — for the very purpose of putting a stop to their indignation and murmurs.

Paul says, "You say to me, then, why does he still find fault? For who resists his will?" Do you notice the personification? Upon hearing that the will of God imposes a necessity on us, they blasphemously murmur and say, Why does he still find fault? That is, why does God so press, so drive, so demand, so complain? Why does He accuse? Why does He condemn? — as if we men could do what he demands, if we pleased. God has no just cause for this complaint. Let him rather accuse his own will — let him prefer his complaint there — let him press and drive there. For who resists his will? Who can obtain mercy when God does not choose that they should receive it? Who can melt himself, if it is God's will to harden him? It does not lie with us to change God's will, much less to resist it. His will chooses that we should be hardened; and by that will we are compelled to be hardened — whether we would have it or not.

If Paul had not resolved this question, or had not unequivocally determined that a necessity is imposed on us by the divine prescience, then what need was there to introduce persons who murmur and allege that it is impossible to resist His will? For who would murmur or be indignant, if he did not think that this necessity had been determined?

The words in which Paul speaks of resisting the will of God are not obscure. Is it doubtful what he means by 'resisting,' or by 'will;' or of whom he speaks when he speaks of the will of God? Let countless thousands of the most approved doctors be blind here; and let them pretend that Scripture is not clear; and let them be afraid of a difficult question. We have some of the clearest words of this import: "He pities whom he will; whom he wills, he hardens." Also, "You say to me, therefore, why does he find fault? Who resists his will?"

Nor is it a difficult question; indeed, nothing can be plainer to common sense than that this consequence is certain, solid, and true: 'If God foreknows an event, it necessarily comes to pass.' This necessarily follows once it is presupposed, upon the testimony of Scripture, that God neither errs nor is deceived. I confess that the question is a difficult one — indeed, one which is impossible to resolve — if in the same instant you determine to maintain both God's foreknowledge, and man's liberty. For what is more difficult, or rather more impossible, than to contend that contradictions and contraries are not at variance with each other; or that a number is at the same time ten and nine? There is no difficulty in the question we are handling. Rather, the difficulty is gone after and brought in, just as ambiguity and obscurity are gone after and introduced into the Scriptures, by violence.

So then, he stops the mouths of those wicked ones who have been offended by those most plain words. And why are they offended? Because they perceive that the divine will is fulfilled by our necessity; and because they perceive it has been unequivocally determined that there is nothing of liberty or of Free will left to them — but all things are dependent on the will of God alone. He stops their mouths, I say, but it is by bidding them to be still, and to reverence the Majesty of the divine power and will, over which we have no right of control. Meanwhile, it has full power over us, to do what seems good to it. It is not that any injury is done to us by its operations, since it owes us nothing. It has received nothing from us, and it has promised nothing to us, beyond what it chose and was pleased to do.

SECT. 20. Where true reverence for the Scriptures lies.

Here then is the place, here is the time, for adoring not the fictitious inhabitants of those Corycian caves, but the real Majesty of God in his fearful wonders, and in His incomprehensible judgments — and for saying "Your will be done, in heaven, so on earth." On the other hand, we are never more irreverent and rash than when we attempt and accuse these very mysteries and judgments, which are unsearchable. Meanwhile, we imagine that we are exercising an incredible degree of reverence in searching the holy Scriptures. Those Scriptures, which God has commanded us to search, we do not search in one direction, but in another — a direction in which he has forbidden us to search them. Thus, we do nothing but search them with a perpetual temerity, if not blasphemy.

Is it not such a search, when we rashly endeavour to make the most free foreknowledge of God, accord with our liberty? And when we are ready to detract from the prescience of God, if it does not leave us in possession of liberty, or if it induces necessity? Is it not to say, with the murmurers and blasphemers, 'Why does he yet find fault? Who resists his will? What has become of the most merciful God? What has become of Him who does not will the death of a sinner? Has he made us that he might delight himself with man's torments?' and like things. Shall these not be howled out forever among the devils and the damned?

But even natural reason is obliged to confess that the living and true God must be such a one as to impose necessity upon us, seeing that He himself is free. For instance, he would be a ridiculous God, or more properly an idol, if he were either to foresee future things doubtfully, or be disappointed by events. Even the Gentiles have assigned irresistible fate to their gods. He would be equally ridiculous if he did not have power to do all things, and did not effect all things; or if anything is really brought to pass without him. Now, if the foreknowledge and omnipotence of God are conceded, then it naturally follows, by an undeniable consequence, that we were not made by ourselves, nor do we live by ourselves, nor do we perform anything by ourselves, but it is all through His omnipotence. And now, since He both knew beforehand that we would be such a people, and He goes on to make us that way, and to move and govern us as such — what can be imagined in us, I ask, that is free to have a different outcome given to it, from what He foreknew, or is now effecting?

So that, God's foreknowledge and omnipotence are diametrically opposite to man's Freewill. Either God will be mistaken in his foreknowledge, and disappointed in his actings (which is impossible), or we will act, and act according to his foreknowledge and agency. By the omnipotence of God, I do not mean a power by which he might do many things which he does not do; but that acting omnipotence by which, with power, he does all things, in all things. It is in this manner, that the Scripture calls God omnipotent. This omnipotence and prescience of God, I say, absolutely abolishes the dogma of Freewill. Nor can the obscurity of Scripture, or the difficulty of the subject, be made a pretext here. The words are most clear; even children know them. The subject matter is plain and easy; it is one which proves itself even to the natural judgment of common sense.

So that, let your series of ages, times, and persons who write and teach otherwise, be ever so great, it will profit you nothing.

SECT. 21. What carnal reason hates.

This common sense, or natural reason, is most highly offended, truly, that God should leave men, should harden them, should damn them, of his own sheer will — as if He were delighted with the sins and torments of the wretched, which are so great and eternal — where he is declared to be a God of such great mercy and goodness. It has been deemed unjust, cruel, and insufferable to entertain such a sentiment concerning God. It is this which has offended so many, and such great men, during so many ages — and who would not be offended?

I myself have been offended at it, more than once, to the very depth, and lowest depth of despair, so as to wish that I had never been created a man — until I learned how salutary that despair was, and how akin it is to grace. Hence, all this toil and sweat in putting forward the goodness of God, and accusing the will of man. Here lay the discovery of those distinctions between God's regulated and absolute will, between the necessity of a consequence and of a consequent, and much of a similar kind; which have produced no result however, except that the ignorant have been imposed upon by "vain babblings, and by oppositions of science, falsely so called." Still, there has always remained this sting fixed in the deep of their hearts, both to the learned and to the unlearned

(if they have ever come to be serious), that they could not believe the prescience and omnipotence of God, without perceiving our necessity.

Even natural reason, though offended by this necessity, and making such vast efforts to remove it, is compelled to admit its existence, through the conviction of her own private judgment. It would be the same, even if there were no Scripture.

For all find this sentiment written in their hearts, so as to recognise and approve it when they hear it discussed, even against their will:

First, that God is omnipotent, not only in what he is able to do, but also in what he actually does, as I have said; otherwise he would be a ridiculous God;

Secondly, he knows and foreknows all things, and can neither mistake, nor be misled.

These two things being conceded through the testimony of their heart and senses, they are by and by compelled to admit by an inevitable consequence, that we were not made by our own will, but by necessity; and hence, we do nothing by right of Freewill, but just as God has foreknown and directs us by a counsel and an energy which is at once infallible and immutable. So then, we find it written at once in all hearts, that there is no such thing as Free will, even if this writing is obscured through the circumstance of so many contrary disputations, and so many persons of such vast authority, having taught differently for so many ages.

So too, every other law — which has been written in our hearts (according to Paul's testimony) — is recognised when rightly handled. But it is obscured when distorted by ungodly teachers and laid hold of by other

SECT. 22. Paul's argument resumed.

Diatribe is dishonest and cowardly — would escape but cannot.

I return to Paul. Now, if he is not solving this question, and concluding human necessity from the prescience and will of God, what need does he have to introduce the simile of the potter making out of one and the same lump, one vessel to honour and another to dishonour? Rom 9.21

Yet the thingmade does not say to its maker 'why have you made me thus?' Rom 9.20 It is men that he is speaking of, whom he compares to clay, and God to the potter. There is no meaning in the comparison; indeed, if he does not mean that our liberty is nothing, then it is absurd and adduced to no purpose. No, Paul's whole argument in support of grace is abortive. The very scope of his whole Epistle is to show that we can do nothing, indeed even when we seem to be doing good. He says in the same place, how Israel, by following after righteousness, has not attained to righteousness; but the Gentiles, who did not follow it, have attained it.

I will speak more about this at large when I produce my own forces.

But Diatribe, disguising the whole body of Paul's argument, together with its scope, consoles herself meanwhile with garbled and corrupted words.

It is nothing to Diatribe, that afterwards in Rom 11.20, Paul exhorts them, on the other hand, "You stand by faith; see that you are not lifted up." And again, Rom 11.23: "They also, if they believe, will be grafted in," etc. He says nothing there about the powers of man, but uses imperative and conjunctive verbs, the effect of which has been sufficiently declared

Indeed, Paul himself, in the very same place, as if to prevent the vaunters of Freewill, does not say that they can believe, but "God is able to graft them in." In short, Diatribe proceeds with so trembling and hesitating a step in handling these texts from Paul's writings, that she seems, in conscience, to dissent even from her own words. For in those places where she should most of all have gone on and proved her doctrine, she almost always breaks off the discourse with, 'But enough of this;' or, 'I will not investigate this point now;' or, 'It is no part of this subject;' or,

'They would say so and so;' and many like expressions. Thus she leaves the matter in the middle, making it doubtful whether she is standing up as a champion for Freewill, or only showing her skill in parrying off Paul with vain words. She does all this in a rule and manner of her own, like someone who is not earnestly pleading this cause. But we should not thus be indifferent; thus skim the ears of corn; thus be shaken like a reed in the wind. Rather, we should first assert confidently, steadfastly, fervently; and then demonstrate by solid, apposite, and abundant proof, the doctrine we maintain.

Then again, how exquisitely she contrives to preserve liberty in union with necessity, when she says, 'Nor does every sort of necessity exclude freedom of will. For instance, God the Father necessarily begets the Son; but He begets him willingly and freely, inasmuch as He is not compelled to beget him.'

Are we disputing now, I ask, about compulsion and force? Have I not in all my writings testified that I speak of a necessity of immutability? I know that the Father willingly begets; I know that Judas betrayed Christ through an act of his will. But I affirm that, if God foreknew it, then this will was about to arise in this very Judas, most certainly and infallibly. If what I affirm is not yet sufficiently understood, let us refer one sort of necessity — that of force — to the work; another sort of necessity — that of infallibility — to the time. Let him who hears me understand that I speak of the necessity of infallibility, not of force. That is, I am not discussing whether Judas became a traitor willingly or unwillingly, but whether, at the time appointed by God, it must infallibly come to pass that Judas, by an act of his own will, betrays Christ.

But see what Diatribe says here: 'If you look at the infallible foreknowledge of God, Judas was necessarily to become a traitor; but Judas might have changed his will,' Do you even know what you are saying, my Diatribe? To omit what has been already proved — that the will can only choose evil — how could Judas change his will, consistent with the infallible foreknowledge of God? Could he change the foreknowledge of God, and make it fallible? Here Diatribe gives in, deserts her standard, throws away her arms, and flees. She refers the discussion — as being none of hers — to those scholastic subtleties which distinguish between the necessity of a consequence and the necessity of a consequent. This is the sort of quibble which she has no mind to pursue.

Doubtless, it is very prudent of you, having conducted your cause all the way into the midst of a crowded court — when a pleader is most necessary — to turn your back and leave the business of replying and defining to others. You should have acted on this counsel from the first, and altogether abstained from writing, according to that saying, 'The man who does not know how to contend, abstains from the weapons of 548 549 the field,' It was not expected of Erasmus to remove this difficulty,

'how God with certainty foreknows, and yet our actions are contingent.'

This difficulty was in the world long before Diatribe's time. But it was expected that he would reply and define. However, being a rhetorician himself, while we know nothing about it, he calls in a rhetorical transition to his aid. Carrying us ignoramuses along with him — as if the matter in debate were one of no moment, and the whole discussion were a mere quirk and quibble — he dashes violently out of the midst of the crowd, wearing his crown of ivy and laurel.

But you have not gained your end by this stratagem, brother! There is no skill in rhetoric so great as to be able to deceive a sincere conscience. For the sting of conscience is mightier than eloquence with all her powers and figures. We will not suffer the rhetorician to pass on here to another topic, so that he may hide himself. It is not the place for this exhibition.

The hinge of the several matters in dispute (and the head of the cause) is attacked here. It is here that Freewill is either extinguished, or gains a complete triumph. But instead of meeting this crisis, no sooner do you perceive your danger — or rather, perceive that the victory over Freewill is sure — than you pretend to see nothing but metaphysical subtleties in the question. Is this acting the part of a trusty theologian? Are you serious in the cause? How does it happen, then, that you both leave your hearers in suspense, and the discussion in a state of confusion and exasperation?

Still, you want to be thought of as having done your work honourably, and to have carried off the palm of victory. Such cunning and wiliness may be endurable in secular causes; but it is most hateful and intolerable in theology, where simple and undisguised truth is the object of pursuit, that souls may be saved.

SECT. 23. Much joy to the Sophists and Diatribe in their necessity of a consequent.

The Sophists also have felt the invincible and insupportable force of this argument; they have therefore feigned this distinction between the necessity of a consequence, and of a consequent.

But it has been shown already how fruitless this distinction is. They too, like yourself, are not aware what they say, and how much they admit against themselves. For if you allow the necessity of a consequence,

Freewill is vanquished and laid prostrate; and it is not at all aided by the consequent's being either necessary or contingent. What is it to me, that Freewill does what she does willingly and not by compulsion? It is enough for me that you concede, 'It must necessarily be that Judas does what he does willingly; and that the event cannot be otherwise if God has so foreknown it.' If God foreknows either that Judas will betray the Lord, or that he will change his will to betray him — whichever of the two He foreknows, it will necessarily come to pass. Else God would be mistaken in his foreknowledge and foretelling, which is impossible. The necessity of the consequence effects this: if God foreknows an event, that very event necessarily happens. In other words, Freewill is nothing. This necessity of the consequence is neither obscure, nor ambiguous. If the great doctors in all ages have even been blind, they must still be obliged to admit its existence, since it is so manifest and so certain as to be palpable.

But the necessity of the consequent, with which they comfort themselves, is a mere phantom; as the saying goes, it diametrically opposes the necessity of the consequence. For example, if I say 'God foreknows that Judas will be a traitor; therefore it will certainly and infallibly come to pass that Judas is a traitor,' this is the necessity of a consequence.

In opposition to this necessity, you console yourself by saying, 'But since Judas may change his will to betray, there is therefore no necessity in the consequent' [i.e., in what must follow]. I demand of you, how can these two assertions agree with each other: 'Judas may not be willing to betray;' and 'it is necessary that Judas be willing to betray,' Do they not directly contradict and oppose each other? You say, 'He will not be compelled to betray against his will' — How does this serve the purpose? You have been affirming something about the necessity of a consequent — that truly, the consequent is not rendered necessary by the necessity of the consequence; but you have affirmed nothing about the compulsion of the consequent. Your answer should have touched the necessity of the consequent; and instead, you produce an example which shows compulsion in the consequence. I ask one question and you reply to another. All this is the product of that half-asleep half-awake state of mind in which you do not perceive how perfectly inefficient that device is

— the necessity of a consequent.

SECT. 24. The other admitted text is defended. Nothing to do with salvation. So Jerome had said.

So much for the first of the two passages, It respects the induration of Pharaoh, and involves all texts of a like kind, amounting to a phalanx — and an invincible one at that.

Let us now examine the second, about Jacob and Esau. When they were not yet born, it was said "The elder shall serve the younger." Diatribe evades this passage by saying, 'It has nothing to do properly with the subject of man's salvation. God may will that a man be a servant or a poor man, whether the man wills it or not, without being rejected from eternal salvation,'

See how many side-paths and holes of escape a slippery mind seeks, which is intent upon flying away from truth — but still, she does not quite accomplish her flight. Let us suppose, if you will, that this text does not pertain to man's salvation (which I will speak about later). Is it to no purpose, then, that Paul adduces it? Would we make Paul ridiculous or absurd in the midst of so serious a discussion? However, this is a fancy of Jerome's, who with abundant arrogance on his brow, while committing sacrilege with his mouth, has the audacity to affirm in more places than one, that those Scriptures which oppose Freewill in Paul's writings, do not oppose Freewill in their proper places, from which he quotes them.

What is this, if not to say that in laying the foundations of Christian doctrine, Paul corrupts the divine Scriptures and beguiles the souls of the faithful, by a sentiment which is the coinage of his own brain, and which is imposed on the Scriptures by violence? Such is the honour, which the Spirit should receive, in the person of that holy and choice instrument of Now, Jerome should be read with judgment. And this saying of his is to be classed among the many which that gentleman (through his laziness in studying, and his dullness in understanding Scripture) has written impiously. Diatribe snaps up this very saying without any judgment, and does not deign to mitigate it as she might at least do, with a gloss of some sort. But she both judges and qualifies the Scriptures by this saying, as an oracle which precludes all doubt. Thus it is, that we take the ungodly sayings of men as so many rules and measures for interpreting the divine word. Can we wonder any longer that God's word has become

"ambiguous and obscure," and that so many of the Fathers are blind to its real meaning, when it is thus made impious and profane?

SECT. 25. Paul defended in his use of Gen. 25.21-23. Nothing is gained by supposing the service is temporal.

Let him be anathema, therefore, who says, 'those words do not oppose the doctrine of Freewill in their original places, which oppose what is quoted by Paul.' This is said, but it is not proved. And it is said by those who neither understand Paul nor the passages cited by him, but deceive themselves by taking the words in their own sense; that is, in an impious sense. For even if this text in particular (Gen 25.21-23.) were meant to speak of temporal servitude only (which is not true); it is still rightly and efficaciously quoted by Paul to prove that when it was said to Rebekah, "The elder shall serve the younger," it is not because of the merits of Jacob or of Esau, but through Him that calls.

Paul's question is whether they attained to what is said of them, by the virtue or merits of Freewill. And he proves that it was not by the virtue or merits of Free will, but only by the grace of Him who called him, that Jacob attained to what Esau did not. He proves this by invincible words of Scripture, such as, that they were not yet born; and again, that they had done neither good nor evil. The weight of the matter lies in this proof; this is the point under debate. But Diatribe, through her exquisite skill in rhetoric, passing over and disguising all these things, does not at all debate the question of merits (although she had undertaken to do so, and although Paul's handling of the subject requires it). Rather, she quibbles about temporal servitude (as if this were at all to the purpose), only so that she may appear not to be conquered by those most mighty words of Paul.

For what could she have to yelp against Paul, in support of Freewill?

What did Freewill profit Jacob, and what hurt was done to Esau by it, when by the foreknowledge and ordination of God, it had been settled what sort of lot each of them would receive? Which was namely, that the one should serve, and the other should rule, when neither of them was yet born, or had done anything. The rewards, which each would receive, were decreed before the workmen were born, and had begun to work. It is to this point, that Diatribe should have directed her reply. This is what Paul insists upon: that they had not yet done nothing good or evil; but still, the one is ordained to be the master and the other the servant, by a divine judgment. The question is not whether this servitude respects eternal salvation, but by what merit this servitude is imposed on a man who has not merited anything. But it is most irksome to maintain a conflict with these depraved endeavours to torture and elude Scripture.

SECT. 26. The service is not really temporal, but spiritual.

It is proved from the text itself, that Moses is not treating their temporal servitude and dominion only; and that Paul is right in this also, that he understands Moses to speak with reference to their eternal salvation.

Even though this is not so important to the point in hand, I will not suffer Paul to be defiled with the calumnies of sacrilegious men. The divine answer given to Rebekah in the book of Moses is this: "Two sorts of people will be separated from your womb; and the one people will overcome the other, and the elder will serve the younger." Gen 25.23 Here two sorts of people are manifestly distinguished from each other. The one is received into the free favour of God, so as to overcome the elder, even though younger; this is not by strength, it is true, but through God's befriending him. How else would the younger conquer the elder, unless

Now, since the younger is about to become the people of God, it is not only external dominion or servitude that is treated here, but everything that pertains to the people of God — that is, the blessing of God, the word, the Spirit, the promise of Christ, and the eternal kingdom. This is even more largely confirmed by the Scripture afterwards, where it describes

Jacob as being blessed, and as receiving the promises and the kingdom.

Paul briefly intimates these several things when he says, "the elder will serve the younger," sending us back to Moses as the one who treats them more at large. Thus, in opposition to the sacrilegious comment of Jerome and Diatribe, you may say that all the passages which Paul adduces, fight still more stoutly against Freewill in their original places, than they do in his writings.

This is a remark which holds good not only with respect to Paul, but with respect to all the Apostles, who quote the Scriptures as witnesses to their doctrine, and assertors of it. Would not it be ridiculous to quote as a testimony, that which testifies to nothing, and does not bear upon the question? These are considered ridiculous among philosophers who prove an unknown thing by one that is yet more unknown, or by an argument which is foreign to the subject. So then, with what face will we ascribe this absurdity to the chief leaders and authors of the doctrine of Christ, on which the salvation of souls depends? This is especially true in those parts of their writings in which they treat the main articles of the faith. But are such insinuations fitting for those who have no real reverence for the divine Scriptures?

SECT. 27. Diatribe's evasions of Mal 1.2-3. Love, by a trope, is used for the effect of love.

That saying of Malachi's which Paul uses, "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated," she tortures by three distinct productions of her industry.

The first is, 'If you insist on the letter, then God does not love as we love; nor does He hate any man, since God is not subject to affections of this kind.'

What is it I hear? Is the question not turned into how God loves and hates; instead of why he loves and hates? The question is, by what merit of ours does He love or hate? We know very well that God does not hate or love as we do; since we both love and hate mutably; but he loves and hates according to his eternal and immutable nature. That is how far He is from being the subject of accident and affection. And it is this very thing, which compels Freewill to be a mere nothing — namely, that the love of God towards men is eternal and immutable, and his hatred towards them is eternal. This is true not only prior to the merit and operation of Freewill, but even to the very creation of the world. And everything is wrought in us necessarily, according to His having either loved us, or not loved us, from eternity. This is so true, that not only the love of God, but even his manner of loving, brings necessity upon us.

See here what Diatribe's attempts at escape have profited her.

Everywhere, the more she strives to slip away, the more she runs around, so unsuccessful is it to struggle against truth. But let your trope be allowed: let the love of God be the effect of love, and the hatred of God be the effect of hatred — are these effects wrought outside or beside the will of God? Will you also say here, that God does not will as we do; nor is

He subject to the affection of willing? If these effects take place, then they take place only when he wills; and whatever he wills, he either loves it or hates it. Tell me then, by what merit on their part, severally, is Jacob loved and Esau hated before they are born and perform any act? It appears, therefore, that Paul most excellently introduces Malachi in support of Moses' sentiment that God called Jacob before he was born because He loved him, not because He was loved before by Jacob; nor because He was moved to do so by any merit of Jacob's. Thus it might be shown by the case of Jacob and Esau, what our Freewill can do.

SECT. 28. Malachi speaks of temporal affliction.

The second of these laboured excogitations is that, 'Malachi does not seem to be speaking of the hatred by which we are eternally damned, but of a temporary affliction. It is a reprehension of those who would build up Edom.'

Here is a second word of reproach for Paul, as doing violence to Scripture. So we entirely cast off our reverence for the majesty of the Holy

Spirit, if we may but establish our own conclusions about it.

But we will bear this insult for a while, and see what good it does. Malachi speaks of temporal affliction. What of it? Or what has this got to do with the point in hand? Paul is proving from Malachi that this affliction was brought upon Esau without any merit of his, by the mere hatred of God.

Paul does so, that he may conclude Freewill is nothing. Here is where you are pressed, and so it is to this point that you should direct your answer.

We are disputing about merit, and you speak of reward. However, you do it in such a way as not to elude what you meant to elude. Indeed, by speaking of reward, you acknowledge merit. But you pretend that you do not see this. Tell me, then, what was the cause in the divine mind for loving Jacob and hating Esau, when they were not yet in being?

Again, it is false that Malachi speaks only of temporary affliction; nor is his business with the destruction of Edom. You pervert the whole meaning of the Prophet by this laboured subtlety. The Prophet makes it quite plain what he means, by using the clearest terms. His meaning is to upbraid the Israelites with their ingratitude; because, while God has been loving them, in return they are neither loving Him as a father, nor fearing him as a master. He proves the fact of his having loved them, both by Scripture and by actual performance. For instance, although Jacob and Esau were brothers, as Moses writes in Gen. 25, God had nonetheless loved and chosen Jacob before he was born (as we have just shown); but He had so hated Esau as to have reduced his country to a wilderness.

Moreover, God hates, and He persists in hating, with such pertinacity, that after having brought Jacob back from captivity, and restored him, he still did not allow the Edomites to be restored. If they so much as say they will build, He threatens their destruction. If the Prophet's own plain text does not contain these things, let the whole world charge me with telling a lie. It is not the temerity of the Edomites, then, which is reprehended here, but the ingratitude of the sons of Jacob (as I have said). They do not see that what God is conferring on them, and what he is taking away from their brothers the Edomites, is for no other reason than He loves the one, and hates the other.

How will it now stand good, that the Prophet is speaking only of temporary affliction? For he declares in plain terms that he is speaking about two distinct nations of people, who had descended from the two

Patriarchs. God had taken up one of these to be his people, and had preserved them; the other had been abandoned, and at length was destroyed. Now, the act of taking up a people as His people, or not taking them up as such, has no respect to temporal good or evil only, but to everything. For our God is not the God of our temporal possessions only, but of everything we have and look for. Nor will He choose to be your

God, or to be worshipped by you, with half a shoulder, or a limping foot, but with all your strength and with all your heart — so as to be your God both here and hereafter, in all circumstances, cases, times, and works.

SECT. 29. Jacob and Esau are a trope for Jew and Gentiles.

The third of these elaborate excogitations is this:

'By a tropological form of expression, he declares that God neither loves all the Gentiles nor hates all the Jews; but some out of each. By this tropical interpretation, it is made clear [she says] that this testimony has no voice for proving necessity, but for repelling the arrogance of the Having made this way of escape for herself, she next goes to the length of maintaining that God is said to hate those who are not yet born, inasmuch as He knows beforehand that they will do things worthy of hatred. Thus the hatred and love of God are no obstacle to Freewill. In the end, she comes to the conclusion that the Jews have been cut off from the olive tree by the merit of unbelief; that the Gentiles have been grafted into it by the merit of faith — making Paul the author of this sentiment — and she gives hope to those who have been cut off, that they will again be grafted in; and she gives fear to those who have been grafted in, lest they be cut off.

Let me die if Diatribe knows herself what she is saying! But perhaps there is also some rhetorical figure here, which teaches scholars to obscure the sense wherever there is any danger of being entrapped by the word. I see none of those tropical forms of speech here; Diatribe may imagine them in her dreams, but she does not prove them. It is no wonder, then, that the testimony of Malachi does not oppose her if taken in a tropological sense, when it has no such sense at all. Again, our subject of disputation is not that cutting off and grafting in which Paul speaks of afterwards, when he exhorts.

We know men are grafted in by faith, and are cut off by unbelief, and that they are to be exhorted to believe, so that they may not be cut off. But it does not follow from this, nor is it proved, that they can believe or disbelieve through the power of the free will. And it is this free will which is the subject of our debate. We are not discussing who are believers and who not; who are Jews and who are heathens; what follows for believers and for unbelievers; all this belongs to the exhorter. Our question is, by what merit, by what work, men attain to that faith by which they are grafted in; or to that unbelief by which they are cut off. This is what belongs to the teacher. Describe this merit to us! Paul teaches that this befalls, not by any work of ours, but only by the love and hatred of God.

And when it has befallen men to believe, He exhorts them to perseverance, that they may not be cut off. Still, exhortation does not prove what we can do, but what we ought to do. I am forced to use almost more words in keeping my adversary from wandering elsewhere, and leaving his cause, than in pleading the cause itself. However, to have kept him to the point is to have conquered him — so clear and invincible are the words which we have under consideration. Hence, he does almost nothing else but turn aside from it, hurrying away in an instant out of sight, pleading another cause than that which he had taken in hand.

SECT. 30. Paul does not quote the simile of clay in the hand of the potter — Temporal afflictions do not evade its force.

She takes her third passage from Isa 45.9, "Does the clay say to its potter, what are you making? And from Jer 18.6, "As the clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand." She then says,

'These words, again, are much stronger combatants in Paul, than in the Prophets from where they are taken. In the Prophets they are spoken about temporal affliction; but Paul applies them to eternal election and reprobation'

Thus she gives Paul a black-eye for his temerity, or for his evaded ignorance.

But, before we see how she proves that neither of these passages exclude Freewill, let me first observe that Paul does not appear to have taken this passage from the Prophets, nor does Diatribe prove that he has. Paul tends to bring in the name of the writer, or to protest that he takes his sentiment from the Scriptures. Here he does neither. It is therefore more probable that Paul uses this general simile (which different writers adopt for the illustration of different causes), in a sense of his own, for the illustration of the cause which he has in hand. Just as he does with that simile, "A little leaven corrupts the whole lump;" in 1Cor. 5.6 he applies this to corruptive manners, and elsewhere he casts it in the teeth of those who were corrupting the word of God — just as Christ also mentions the leaven of Herod and of the Pharisees. Mk 8.15

So then, although the Prophets may especially speak of temporal affliction, Paul still uses it in a sense of his own, against Freewill. But this is a point which I decline to address now, so that I may not be so often occupied and put off with questions that are foreign to the subject. But I do not know how far it can be shown that Freewill is not taken away, if we are clay in the afflicting hand of God; or why Diatribe insists on this distinction. For it is unquestionable that afflictions come upon us from God, against our own will; and we are under the necessity of bearing them, whether we will or not. Nor do we have it in our own power to avert them, even though we are exhorted, it is true, to bear them with a willing

SECT. 31. The cavil from 1Tim 2.20 is repelled.

But it is worthwhile to hear Diatribe prosecute her cavil that, by introducing this simile, Paul does not exclude Freewill in his argument.

She objects that there are two absurdities; one she gathers from Scripture, the other from reason. The Scriptural one runs as follows.

When Paul had said in 2Tim. 2.20 that in a great house there are vessels of gold and of silver, and of wood and of earth; some for honour, and some for dishonour; he quickly adds, "if a man cleanses himself from these, he will be a vessel for honour, " etc. Upon this, Diatribe reasons thus:

'What could be more foolish than if a man were to say to an earthen urinal, if you purge yourself, you will be a vessel of honour? However, this would be rightly enough said to a cask possessed of reason, which has the faculty of accommodating itself to the will of its master when admonished what that will is.'

From these hints, she would gather that the simile does not square in all respects, and it is so far parried, as to prove nothing. I answer, first, to the exclusion of this cavil, that Paul does not say, if a man cleanses himself from his own filth, but from these; that is, from the vessels of reproach.

So the sense is, that if a man abides in a state of separation from these ungodly teachers, and has not mixed himself with them, then he will be a vessel of honour, etc. But, what if I were also to grant that this text of Paul's has no more efficacy than Diatribe wishes to give to it — that is, that the simile proves nothing?

How will she prove that Paul means the same thing in that passage from Rom 9.13, which we are discussing? Is it enough to quote another passage, and to have no care at all whether it has the same scope or a different one? There is no easier or commoner failure in interpreting

Scripture, as I have often shown, than to parallelize different passages of Scripture, as being alike. Thus, the similitude of texts (on the ground by which Diatribe vaunts herself here) is even more inefficacious than this simile of ours which she is confuting. But not to be contentious, let me grant that each of these passages in Paul's writings means the same thing; and that a simile does not always, in all particulars, square with the thing illustrated (without controversy, this is true). Indeed, if it did, it would be neither a simile nor a metaphor, but the very thing itself, according to the proverb, 'Simile halts, and does not always run on all fours.'

But here is Diatribe's error and offence: she overlooks the cause of the comparison which ought to be looked at more than all the rest, and she is captious and contentious about words. Rather, the meaning is to be sought, as Hilary says, not only from the words used, but also from the causes which give rise to them. Thus the force of a simile depends on the cause of the simile. Why then does Diatribe leave out the matter for which Paul uses the simile, and halt at what he says over and above the cause of the simile?

What he says, 'If a man cleanses himself,' belongs to exhortation; the phrase, 'In a great house are vessels,' etc., belongs to teaching. So that, from all the circumstances of Paul's words and sentiment, you would understand him to be making a declaration about the diversity and use of vessels.

The meaning is therefore, 'Since so many are now departing from the faith, we have no consolation except that we are sure the foundation of God stands firm, having this seal to it: the Lord knows those who are his, and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord departs from iniquity,'

Thus far we have the cause and the force of the simile; namely, that the Lord knows those who are his.' Then follows the simile itself; namely, that there are different vessels, some for honour, and some for disgrace.'

Here the doctrine ends; namely, 'that vessels do not prepare themselves, but their master prepares them.' Romans 9.21 also means the same thing:

'that the potter has power,' etc. Thus, Paul's simile remains unshaken and it is most efficacious to prove that Freewill is nothing before God.

After these follows the exhortation, "If any man purges himself from these;" the force of these expressions is well known from what has been said above.

It does not follow from this, that he can therefore cleanse himself. Indeed, if anything is proved by these words, it is that Freewill can cleanse itself without grace — since Paul does not say, 'if grace has cleansed anyone,' but 'if he cleanses himself.' However, much has been said about imperative and conjunctive verbs. And the simile, let it be observed, is not expressed in conjunctive verbs, but indicative. Just as there are elect and reprobate, so there are vessels of honour and of ignominy. In a word, if this evasion is admitted, Paul's whole argument falls to the ground. But to what purpose would he introduce persons murmuring against God as the potter, if the fault were seen to be in the vessel, and not in the potter?

Who would murmur at hearing that one worthy of damnation is damned?

SECT. 32. Reason's cavil from this simile, set forth in its audacity.

Diatribe culls a second absurdity from Madam Reason, commonly called 'The fault is not to be imputed to the vessel, but to the potter: especially since he is the sort of potter that creates the very clay itself and moulds it. Here is a vessel cast into eternal fire, which has committed no fault except that of not being its own master,'

Nowhere does Diatribe more openly betray herself than in this place. For here is heard what Paul represents profane men as saying: 'Why does he find fault? Who resists his will?" (It is said in other words, it is true, but with the same meaning.) This is that verity which reason can neither apprehend, nor endure. This is what offends so many persons of excellent talents, received for so many ages! Here, truly, they demand that God should act according to human law, and do what seems right to them; or cease to be God.

The secrets of his Majesty will profit God nothing. Let him give a reason why he is God, or why he wills or does what has no appearance of justice

— as if you were calling a cobbler or a tailor to come and stand at your judgment-seat. The flesh does not think it fit to put such an honour upon God, as to believe that He is just and good, when he speaks and acts above and beyond the rules prescribed in Justinian's Codex, or in the fifth book of Aristotle's Ethics. Let the creative majesty give way to one single dreg of his creation, and let the famed Corycian cave change places with its spectators, and stand in awe of them, not they in awe of it! So then, it is absurd that God should damn a person who cannot avoid deserving such damnation. And because this is such an absurdity to the flesh, it must therefore be false that, "He has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he wills he hardens." Rom 9.18 But he must be brought to order, and laws must be prescribed for God, so that he may not condemn anyone who has not first deserved it according to our judgment. Thus only can they be satisfied with Paul and his simile; namely, they allow

Paul's recalling it to have no meaning. Rather, they so moderate it that, according to Diatribe's explanation, the potter here makes a vessel for dishonour on the ground of previous deservings — just as God rejects some Jews for their unbelief; and takes up the Gentiles for their faith. But if God's work is such that he regards our merits, then why do men murmur and expostulate? How come they say, 'Why does he find fault?

Who resists his will?' What need is there for Paul to shut their mouths?

For who can wonder (I will not ask, who is indignant or expostulates) if he is condemned by his own deserving? Again; what becomes of the power of the potter to make what he pleases, if he is subjected to merits and laws? He is not allowed to do what he wills, but he is required to do what he should.

Respect to merits is quite at variance with the power and liberty of doing what he pleases. This is proven by the householder in the parable, who opposes the liberty of his will in the disposal of his good things, to the murmurs of his labourers who demanded a distribution according to rights. These are among the considerations which invalidate Diatribe's gloss.

SECT. 33. Exposed further by asking, why not cavil against the salvation of the saved?

But let us suppose, say, that God were such that he regards merits in the damned. Will we not equally maintain and allow that he also looks at merits in the saved? If we have a mind to follow Reason, then it is equally unjust to have the unworthy be crowned, as to have the unworthy be punished. Let us conclude, then, that God must justify on the ground of previous deservings; or else we would declare him unjust, as being delighted with evil and wicked men, and inviting them to impiety by crowning them with rewards for it. But woe to us — who would then indeed be wretched beings — if this were our God. For who then would be saved?

See how good for nothing the human heart is! When God saves the unworthy without merit — indeed, when he justifies the ungodly despite much demerit — this heart does not accuse Him of unfairness. This heart does not then imperiously demand of him why he wills it, even though it is most unfair according to her own judgment. But because it is advantageous and acceptable to herself, she counts it fair and good. But when God condemns the undeserving — seeing that it is disadvantageous to herself — this is unfair, this is intolerable. This is where expostulation, murmuring, and blasphemy come in.

You see, then, that Diatribe and her friends do not judge according to equity in this cause, but according to whether their interest is affected. If she regarded only equity, she would argue with God for crowning the unworthy, just as much as she does for condemning the undeserving.

She would also commend and extol God for condemning the undeserving, just as much as she does for saving the unworthy. There is equal unfairness in each case if you refer the matter to our own judgment — unless it is not equally unrighteous to commend Cain for his murder and make him a king, as it would be to cast innocent Abel into prison or put him to death. When it is found, then, that reason commends God for saving the unworthy, but finds fault with him for condemning the undeserving, she stands convicted of not commending God as God, but as one who promotes her own personal interest. In other words, she looks at self and her own things in God, and commends them; not at God and the things of God. The truth is, however, that if you are pleased with God for crowning the unworthy, then you should not be displeased with him for condemning the undeserving. If he is just in the one case, then why not in the other? In the former case, he scatters favour and pity upon the unworthy; in the latter, he scatters wrath and severity upon the undeserving. In both cases, it is excessive and unrighteous according to man's judgment, but it is just and true according to His own. For it is incomprehensible at present, how it is just that He crowns the unworthy

— but we will see how, when we come to that place where He will no longer be believed, but we will behold Him with open face.2Cor 3.18 So again, it is incomprehensible at present how it is just that he condemns the undeserving; but we receive it as a matter of faith, until the Son of SECT. 34. Scripture must be understood with qualifications.

Diatribe, however, is sorely displeased with this simile of the potter and the clay, and not a little indignant to be so hunted by it. She is reduced at length to the extremity of producing different passages from Scripture, some of which seem to ascribe all to man, and some, all to grace. And then she contends in her passion, that both these should be understood with a sober explanation, and are not to be taken strictly. Otherwise, if we urge this simile, she in turn is prepared to urge us with those imperative and conjunctive texts, especially with this one of Paul's: "If a man purges himself from these." Here she represents Paul as contradicting himself, and she attributes all to man, unless a sober explanation comes to his aid. 'If, then, an explanation of the text is allowed here, so as to leave room for grace, then why may not the simile of the potter also allow a qualification, so as to leave room for Freewill?'

I answer that it is no matter to me whether you take the words in a simple sense, or in a double sense, or in a hundred senses. What I say is that you gain nothing, and prove nothing (of what you seek to gain and prove), by this "sober" explanation. It ought to be proved by it, that Freewill can will nothing good.

But in this place, "If a man purges himself from these," the form of expression being conjunctive, neither anything, nor nothing is proved, for Paul is only exhorting. Or if you add Diatribe's consequence, and say that he exhorts in vain if man cannot cleanse himself, then it is proved that Freewill can do everything without grace. And so, Diatribe disproves herself.

I still wait for some passage of Scripture therefore, which teaches this explanation; I do not give credit to those who make it up out of their own heads. I deny that any passage is found which ascribes all to man. I also deny that Paul is at variance with himself when he says, "If a man cleanses himself from these." I affirm that the variance in Paul is no less a fiction, than the explanation which she extorts from it is a laboured invention; and neither of them is demonstrated. This I indeed confess: that if it is lawful to expand the Scriptures with these consequences and appendages of Diatribe's — such as when she says that injunctions are vain if we do not have the power to fulfil them — then Paul is really at variance with himself, and all of Scripture with him; because then the Scripture is made different from what it was before. Then she would also prove that Freewill can do everything. But what wonder is it if, in that case, what she says elsewhere is also at variance with her statement 'that God is the sole doer of everything?' But this Scripture, so added to, is not only at war with us, but also with Diatribe herself, who has laid it down that Freewill can will nothing good. Let her therefore deliver herself first of all, and say how these two things agree with Paul: Freewill can will nothing good; and 'if a man cleanses himself, he can therefore cleanse himself, or else it is said in vain.' You see, therefore, that Diatribe is plagued to death, and is overcome by this simile of the potter, and that all her effort is to elude the force of it.

Meanwhile, she is not heeding how much her interpretation injures the cause which she has undertaken to defend, and how she is confuting and making a jest of herself.

SECT. 35. Luther has always maintained the perfect consistency of Scripture — illustrates it in affirmed opposites.

On the contrary, as I said before, I have never been ambitious about interpretations, nor have I ever spoken in this manner: "extend the hand;" that is, 'grace shall extend it.' These are Diatribe's fictions about me, said to benefit her own cause. My affirmation has always been that there is no variance in the words of Scripture, and no need for an 'explanation' to untie a knot. It is the assertors of Freewill who make knots where there are none, and dream up discrepancies for themselves. For example; those two sayings, "If a man cleanses himself," and "God works all in all," are in no way opposite. Nor is it necessary (to untie a knot) to say, God does something, and man does something. The former of these texts is a conjunctive sentence, which neither affirms nor denies any work or power in man, but it prescribes what work or power there ought to be in a man. There is nothing figurative here, nothing which needs explanation: the words are simple, the sense is simple, if you do not add consequences and corruptives in the manner of Diatribe.

Then, indeed, the sense would become unsound. But whose fault would that be? Not the text's, but its corrupter's.

The latter text, "God works all in all," is an indicative sentence, affirming that all work, all power is God's. In what respect, then, do two places disagree, of which one has nothing to do with the power of man, and the other ascribes all to God?

Rather, do they not most perfectly agree with each other? But Diatribe is so plunged over head and ears, choked and sobbed, by entertaining this carnal thought, 'that it is vain to command impossibilities,' that she is not able to restrain herself. Whenever she hears an imperative or conjunctive verb, she at once appends her own indicative consequences to it, saying, 'There is something commanded, therefore we can do it, otherwise it would have been folly to command it.' Upon this, she sallies forth and boasts of her victories everywhere, as though she had demonstrated that those consequences, together with her own imagination, were as much a settled thing, as divine authority. Upon this, she does not hesitate to pronounce that in some passages of Scripture, everything is ascribed to man; or that there is therefore a discrepancy, a repugnancy in those places, which must be obviated by an explanation.

She does not see that all this is the figment of her own brain, without a single letter of Scripture to confirm it — that besides this, it is a figment of such a kind that, if admitted, it would confute no one more stoutly than herself. For would she not prove by it (if she proves anything), that Freewill can do everything? This is the express contrary to what she has undertaken to prove.

SECT. 36. In merit and reward, etc., she contradicts herself — proves an absurdity, and cannot tell what she means to prove. But in fact, she proves nothing — Paul stands.

It is upon the same principle that she so often repeats the words, 'If man does nothing, there is no room for merit; and where there is no place for merit, there is no place for punishment or reward. '

Again she does not see how much more stoutly she confutes herself by these carnal arguments, than she does me.

For what do these consequences prove, except that all attainable merit is by Freewill? What room will there be then for grace? Besides, if you say

Freewill earns a very little, and grace earns the rest, then why does Freewill receive the whole reward? Will we also invent a very small degree of reward for her? If there must be a place for merit so that there may be a place for reward, then the merit should be as big as the reward.

But why do I waste my words and my time about what is nothing? Even if all of what Diatribe is contriving were built up and could stand; and even if it were partly man's work, and partly God's work, that we have merit — still, they cannot define this work in which our merit consists, of what sort and how extensive it is — so that, we are disputing about goats' hair.

Well then, she proves none of those things which she asserts — neither discrepancy, nor a qualified interpretation — nor can she exhibit a text of Scripture which ascribes all to man. Rather, all these things are phantasms of her own imagination. Paul's simile of the potter and his clay therefore maintains its ground, unhurt and irresistible, a proof that it is not of our own will, what sort of vessels we are formed into. And those exhortations of Paul's, "If a man purges himself," and the like, are models to which we ought to be conformed, but they are no proofs of either our performance or our endeavour. Let this suffice with respect to those passages about Pharaoh's hardening, about Esau, and about the potter.

SECT. 37. Gen. 6.3 maintained.

Diatribe comes at length to those passages which are cited by Luther in opposition to Freewill, intending to confute them also. The first of them is

Gen 6.3, "My Spirit shall not always abide in man, because he is flesh."

She confutes this passage in various ways.

First, she urges that "flesh" does not signify 'sinful affection' here, but Secondly, she expands Moses' text. Because his saying pertains to the men of that age, not to the whole human race, she would therefore say, 'in those men;' — yet again, she is not even applying it to all the men of that age, since Noah is excepted.

Lastly, she urges that this saying imports something else in the Hebrew language; that it refers to the clemency and not the severity of God, according to Jerome. Possibly she means to persuade us that, because this saying does not pertain to Noah but to the wicked, the severity and not the clemency of God therefore pertains to Noah; and the clemency and not the severity of God pertains to the wicked!

But we will pass over these fooleries of Diatribe's, who everywhere tells us that she considers the Scriptures a fable. I do not care what Jerome says in his trifling way here. It is certain that he proves nothing. And we are not inquiring what Jerome thinks, but what the Scripture means. Let the perverters of Scripture pretend that the Spirit of God means his indignation. I affirm that she fails in her proof in two ways: first, she cannot produce a single text of Scripture in which the Spirit of God means

God's indignation; on the contrary, kindness and sweetness are everywhere ascribed to him; secondly, if she could by any means prove that it is somewhere or other taken for indignation, still she cannot directly prove that it necessarily follows that it must also be taken so here.

Again, let her pretend that the flesh is taken for infirmity; in the same degree, she still proves nothing. For, though Paul calls the Corinthians carnal, he certainly does not mean to impute infirmity to them, but fault

— complaining as he does, that they were oppressed with sects and parties. This is not infirmity, or incapacity to receive more solid doctrine, but the old leaven of malice, which he commands them to purge out.

Let us examine the Hebrew. "My Spirit shall not always be judging man, because he is flesh,' This is word for word what Moses says. And if we would give up our own dreams, the words are sufficiently clear and manifest, I think, as they stand there. But the words which go before, and which follow after, connected as they are with bringing on the flood, sufficiently show that they are the expressions of an angry God. They were occasioned by the fact that the sons of men were marrying wives through the mere lust of the flesh, and then oppressing the earth with tyranny. This compelled God to hasten the flood, through his anger, scarcely allowing Him to defer for an hundred years what he would otherwise never have brought upon the earth. Read Moses carefully, and you will see that he clearly means this. If you are free to sport with the Scriptures, as if you were looking for scraps and shreds of Virgil in them, then what wonder is it that they are obscure, or that you set up not only Freewill, but even Divine will through them. This truly is untying knots and putting an end to questions by a "qualified interpretation"!

Jerome and his friend Origen have filled the world with these trifling conceits, and have been the originators of this pestilent precedent, for not regarding the simplicity of Scripture.

It was enough for me, that it be proved from this text, that divine authority calls men flesh — and such a manner of flesh, that the Spirit of God could not continue among them, but at a fixed period must be withdrawn from them. He explains shortly what he means by declaring that his Spirit will not always judge among men, by prescribing the space of a hundred and twenty years, during which he would still judge. He opposes the Spirit to the flesh because men, being flesh, do not receive the Spirit; and He, being Spirit, cannot approve the flesh.

From this it would arise, that he must be withdrawn after a hundred and twenty years. Hence, we may understand the passage in Moses thus:

'My Spirit, which is in Noah and my other saints, reproves those wicked men by the word they preach, and by the holy life they lead (for to judge among men is to exercise the ministry of the word among them — to reprove, rebuke and entreat, in season and out of season). But it was in vain. For being blinded and hardened by the flesh, they become worse the more they are judged. This is just as it is whenever the word of God comes into the world: men are made worse, the more they are instructed. Rom 7.7 And this is the reason why the wrath of God is now hastened, just as the flood was also hastened in that day. Not only do men sin now-a-days, but even grace is despised, and as Christ says,

'Light has come, but men hate light.'' Joh 3.20

Therefore, since men are flesh, as God himself testifies, they can mind nothing but the flesh; so that Freewill can have no power but to commit sin: and since they grow worse, even with the Spirit of God calling among them and teaching them, what would they do when left to themselves without the Spirit of God? Nor does it address the purpose here, that Moses speaks of the men of that age. The same is true of all men, since all are flesh. As Christ says in Joh 3.6, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." On the same occasion, he teaches us himself how great a malady this is, when he says, "No one can enter into the kingdom of God, unless he is born again."

Let the Christian know, therefore, that Origen and Jerome, and all their tribe, are guilty of a pernicious error in denying that the flesh means ungodly affection in these places. For that expression in 1Cor 3.3, "you are yet carnal," speaks of ungodliness. Paul means that they had ungodly persons still among them; and further, that the godly, so far as they mind carnal things, are carnal, even though they have been justified by the In short, you will observe in Scripture that wherever the flesh is treated in opposition to the Spirit, you may almost always understand that the flesh means everything that is contrary to the Spirit. For instance; "The flesh profits nothing." But where it is treated absolutely, you may know that it denotes the bodily nature and condition: such as, "The two shall be one flesh." "My flesh is food indeed." "The word was made flesh." In these places, you may change the Hebrew idiom and say 'body,' instead of flesh.

The Hebrew language expresses by one word, 'flesh,' what we do by the two words 'flesh' and 'body.' I wish indeed that it had been so translated by distinct terms throughout the whole canon of Scripture, without exception. So that, my text from Gen 6.3 will maintain its place boldly, I think, as the opponent of Freewill, since it is proved that the flesh, as spoken of here, is that same substance of which Paul speaks in Romans 8:

"neither can it be subjected to the will of God" We will see this when we come to that passage. And Diatribe herself says that it can will nothing

SECT. 38. Gen 8.21 and 6.5 maintained.

The second passage is from Gen. 8.21, "The imagination and thought of man's heart are prone to evil from his youth." And in chap. 6, "Every thought of man's heart is intent upon evil continually." Diatribe puts this off by saying, 'The proneness to evil, which is in most men, does not altogether take away the freedom of the will.'

But does God, I ask, speak of most men rather than all men, when as if repenting himself after the flood, He promises to those who remained of men, and to those who would come after, that he would no longer bring a flood because of man? He subjoins as the reason, that man is prone to evil. It is as if he said, 'If man's wickedness were to be regarded, there would never be any ceasing from a flood. But from now on, I do not mean to look at man's deservings,' etc. So you see, God affirms that men were evil both before the flood and after it; making what Diatribe says about most men nothing. Then again, this proneness or propensity to evil seems a matter of small moment to Diatribe; as though it were within the limits of our own power to raise it up, or to restrain it. But the Scripture expresses by this proneness, that constant seizure and impulse of the will towards evil. Why has Diatribe not consulted the Hebrew text here also?

Moses says nothing about proneness in it; so that, you have no ground for cavilling. For thus it is written in chap. 6: "Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil all his days." He does not say intent upon, or prone to evil, but absolutely evil; and nothing but evil is imagined and thought of by man all his life. The nature of its wickedness is described: that it neither does, nor can do otherwise, seeing that it is evil. For an evil tree cannot bear any fruit other than evil, according to Christ's testimony. Mat 7.17

As for Diatribe's cavil, 'Why is space given for repentance, if repentance is in no way dependent on the will, but everything is wrought by necessity?' my reply is that you may say the same about all the precepts of God. Why does he enjoin, if all things happen by necessity? He commands, that he may instruct and admonish men what they ought to do, so that having been humbled by the recognition of their own wickedness, they may attain to grace, as abundantly declared earlier. So that this text, also, still stands its ground invincibly as the antagonist of Freewill.

SECT. 39. Isa 40.2 maintained.

The third passage is Isaiah 40.2: "She has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins." Jerome, she says, interprets it as concerning divine vengeance, not as grace given in return for evil deeds. This means that if 'Jerome says so, it is therefore true.' I affirm that Isaiah asserts a certain proposition in most express words, and she throws Jerome in my face — a man, to speak in the gentlest terms, of no judgment or diligence.

What has become of that promise, on the faith of which we made a compact, that we would plead the Scriptures themselves, and not human

This whole chapter of Isaiah, according to the Evangelists, speaks of remission of sins as announced by the Gospel. In it they affirm that "the voice of him that cries" pertains to John the Baptist. Now, is it to be endured that Jerome, in his manner, imposes Jewish blindness on us as to the historical sense of the passage, and then imposes his own silly conceits by way of allegory, so that, through a perversion of grammar, we might understand a passage which speaks of remission, to speak of vengeance instead? What sort of vengeance is it, I ask, which has been fulfilled by preaching Christ?

But let us look at the words themselves in the Hebrew. "Be comforted, He says; be comforted, O my people;" or, "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." Isa 40.1 I do not imagine that the one who commands consolation, inflicts vengeance. It then follows; "speak to the heart of Jerusalem and proclaim to her." To speak to the heart is a Hebraism meaning, "to speak good, sweet and soothing things," as in Gen 34.3.

Sichem speaks to the heart of Dinah, whom he had defiled. That is, he soothed her in her sadness with soft words — as our translation has it. He explains what those good and sweet things are, which God has commanded to be spoken for their consolation, by saying, "For her warfare is finished, in that her iniquity is pardoned; seeing that she has received from the Lord's hand, double for all her sins." — 'Warfare,' which our manuscripts faultily render 'malice,' appears to the audacious Jewish grammatists, to denote a stated time. For thus they understand Job 7.1:

"The life of man on the earth is warfare;" that is, there is a fixed time appointed to him. I prefer considering the term 'warfare' to be used literally, according to its grammatical sense; understanding Isaiah to speak of the course and labour of the people under the law, which was like that of combatants in the stadium.

For thus Paul chooses to compare both the preachers and hearers of the word to soldiers — as when he commands Timothy to fight as a good soldier, and to war a good warfare. And he represents the Corinthians as running in a race course. So again, "No man is crowned unless he strives lawfully." He clothes both the Ephesians and the Thessalonians with armour, and boasts that he himself has fought the good fight, and the like in other places. So too in 1Kings [i.e., 1Samuel] it is written in the Hebrew text, that the sons of Eli slept with the women who were performing service (literally, warring) at the door of the tabernacle of the covenant. Moses also mentions their warfare in Exodus. Hence too, their God is called the Lord of Sabaoth; that is, the Lord of warfare or of armies.

Isaiah therefore declares that the warfare of a legal people with which they were harassed under the law, would be finished. According to the testimony of Peter in Acts 15.8-10, it is like an insupportable burden — being delivered from the law, they have been translated into the new service of the Spirit.

Moreover, this end of their most hard service, and this succession of a new and most free one, is not be given to them through their merit (since they could not even bear that service), but rather through their demerit.

For their iniquity was freely forgiven them, and therefore their warfare is finished. Here are no obscure or ambiguous words. He says that their warfare is finished, because their iniquity is forgiven them — plainly intimating that, like soldiers under the law, they had not fulfilled the law, nor could they have fulfilled it, but they had been warring in the service of sin, and had been sinner soldiers.

As if God were to say, 'If I would have the law fulfilled by them, then I am compelled to forgive them their sins; indeed, I am compelled at the same time to take away the law, because I see that they cannot help but sin.

And they do that most of all when they are militating — that is, labouring to press the model of the law — through their own strength.' The Hebrew phrase "her iniquity has been forgiven," denotes 'gratuitous good pleasure,' by which iniquity is made a present of (it is forgiven) without any merit; indeed, with absolute demerit. This is what he subjoins.

"For she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins." This, as I have said, means not only the remission of sins, but a finished warfare. This is nothing else but —the law being taken away, which was the strength of sin; and sin being forgiven, which was the sting of death — to reign in twofold liberty, through the victory of Jesus Christ. This is what Isaiah means by saying, "from the hand of the Lord." They have not obtained these things by their own strength or merits, but have received them through the conquests and free gift of Christ. "In all their sins," is another Hebraism; agreeing with what is expressed in Latin by for or on account of their sins — just as in Hosea 12.12 it is said that Jacob served in his wife; that is, for his wife. And in the 17th Psalm, they have compassed me round in my soul; that is, for my soul. Isaiah therefore represents our merits, figuratively, to be the procuring cause of this twofold liberty; namely, the finished warfare of the law, and the forgiveness of sin; this is because our merits have only been sins, and all of them sins. Isa 64.6

Shall we then suffer this most beautiful and invincible text against Freewill to be polluted with Jewish filth, such as Jerome and Diatribe have daubed on it? God forbid! On the contrary, my friend Isaiah keeps his ground as the conqueror of Freewill. He makes it clear that grace is given, not for the merits or endeavours of Freewill, but for its sins and demerits; and that Freewill, by its own powers, can do nothing but maintain the warfare of sin. For even the very law, supposedly given as a help to her, was an intolerable burden; it made her yet more a sinner while militating under it.

SECT. 40. Episode on God's help — Diatribe argues that, 'Even though sin abounds through the law, and where sin has abounded, grace also abounds — it does not follow from this, that man, assisted by the help of God (even before grace makes him acceptable), cannot prepare himself for divine favour, by means of morally good works.'

I wonder if Diatribe is speaking here of her own head, and has not culled this flower from some document sent or obtained from some other quarter, which she has entwined into her own nosegay. She neither sees nor hears what her own words mean. If sin abounds by the law, how is it possible that a man can prepare himself by moral works for the divine favour? How can works profit, when the law does not profit? Or what else is it for sin to abound by the law, if not that works done according to the law are sins? But more about this in another place. Then, what is it that she says? That 'man assisted by the help of God can prepare himself by good works?' Are we arguing about God's help, or about Freewill? What is not possible for divine help? But this is just what

I said: Diatribe despises the cause that she is pleading; and therefore she snores and gapes so, in the midst of her talk.

She adduces Cornelius the centurion, as an example of a man whose prayers and alms pleased God, before he was yet baptized and inspired with the Holy Spirit.

I too have read Luke's account in the Acts; but I have never found a single syllable which indicates that the works of Cornelius were morally good without the Holy Spirit, as Diatribe dreams. On the contrary, I find that he was a just man, and one who feared God: for so Luke calls him. But for a man to be called a just man and one who fears God, without the Holy

Spirit, is to call Belial Christ. — Then again, the whole argument in that passage goes to prove that Cornelius was clean in the sight of God.

Even the vision which was sent down from heaven to Peter, and which also rebuked him, testifies of this. Indeed, the righteousness and faith of Cornelius are celebrated by Luke in such great words, and by such great deeds, that it is impossible to doubt them. Diatribe however, with her friends the Sophists, contrives to be blind and to see the contrary — doing so with her eyes open, amidst the clearest light of words and evidence of facts. Such is her lack of diligence in reading and observing the Scriptures

— which in that case, may well be defamed as obscure and ambiguous.

What, clean though he had not yet been baptized, and had not yet heard the testimony of Christ's resurrection! Does it follow from this that he did not have the Holy Spirit? On the same principle, you would say that John the Baptist also, with his father and mother — next, Christ's mother, and Simeon — did not have the Spirit! But away with such thick darkness!

SECT. 41. Isaiah 40.6-7 maintained.

My fourth text is taken from the same chapter of Isaiah, "All flesh is grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass; the grass withers, and its flower falls, because the Spirit of the Lord blows upon it;" etc. This seems to my Diatribe, to suffer great violence when it drawn to the subject of grace and Freewill. Why so, I ask? Because Jerome, she says, takes the Spirit for indignation, and the flesh for the infirm state of man, which cannot stand against God. Again, the trifling conceits of Jerome are presented to me, instead of Isaiah. I have a harder fight to maintain against the weariness with which Diatribe's carelessness consumes me, than against Diatribe herself. But I have very recently said what I think of Jerome's sentiment. Let us compare Diatribe's self with herself. Flesh, she says, is the infirm state of man. Spirit is the divine indignation. Does the divine indignation have nothing else to dry up, then, but only this wretched and infirm condition of man, which it should rather raise up than destroy?

But this is a finer touch still. — 'The flower of grass is the glory which arises from prosperity with respect to bodily things. The Jews gloried in their temple, in circumcision, and in their sacrifices: the Greeks in their wisdom.'

So then, the flower of grass and the glory of the flesh is the righteousness of works, and the wisdom of the world. How is it then, that righteousness and wisdom are called bodily things by Diatribe? What must then be said to Isaiah, who explains himself in words that are not figurative, where he says, "Truly the people are grass.". He does not say, 'Truly the infirm condition of man is grass,' but "the people are grass;" and he asserts it with an oath. What are the people then? Only the infirm condition of man? Indeed, I do not know what Jerome means by 'the infirm condition of man;' whether he means 'the creature itself,' or 'the wretched lot and state of man.'

But, whichever of the two it is, the divine indignation assuredly 'carries off wonderful praise and ample spoils,' in drying up a wretched creature, or men who are in a state of unhappiness, instead of scattering the proud, and pulling down the mighty from their seat, and sending the rich away empty; as Mary sings.

SECT. 42. The true interpretation.

But let us bid adieu to our spectres, and follow Isaiah. The people, he says, are grass. Now, the people are not merely flesh, or the infirm state of human nature. Rather, the word comprehends whatever is contained among the people: namely, rich men, wise men, just men, holy men — unless the Pharisees, elders, princes, chiefs, rich, etc. were not of the people of the Jews. Its glory is rightly called the flower of grass; for they boasted of their dominion, of their government, especially their law, of God, of righteousness and wisdom; as Paul argues in Romans 2, 3, 9.

When Isaiah therefore says, "all flesh;" what else is this if not all the grass, or all the people? For he does not simply say, "flesh," but "all flesh." Now, what pertains to the people is their soul, body, mind, reason, judgment, and whatever else can be mentioned or discovered that is most excellent in man. For the one who says "all flesh is grass" excepts no one, but the Spirit which dries up the grass. Neither does the one who says,

"the people are grass" omit anything. Let there be Freewill, then; let there be whatever is accounted highest and lowest in the people; Isaiah calls all of this "flesh" and "grass," seeing that these three nouns — flesh, grass, people — mean the same thing in this place, according to the interpretation of the very author of the book.

Then again, you yourself affirm that the wisdom of the Greeks, and the righteousness of the Jews, which were dried up by the Gospel, are grass, or the flower of grass.

Do you think that wisdom was not the most excellent thing which the Greeks possessed? Do you think that righteousness was not the most excellent thing which the Jews could work? Show me anything that was more excellent than these. What becomes of your confidence, then, by which I suppose you gave even Philip Melancthon a black-eye?

'If any man contends that what is best in man is nothing but flesh — that is to say, wickedness — I would be ready to agree with him, provided he but shows by Scripture testimonies, that what he asserts is true.'

You have Isaiah proclaiming here with a loud voice, that the people, those who do not have the Spirit of the Lord, is flesh — although even this loud voice does not make you hear. You have your own confession (made perhaps without knowing what you were saying), that the wisdom of the Greeks is grass, or the glory of grass; which is the same as calling it flesh. Unless you choose, instead, to contend that the wisdom of the Greeks does not pertain to reason, or to 'the leading thing,' as you call it by a Greek term — the principal part of man. Hear yourself at least — if you despise me — when being taken captive by the force of truth, you affirm what is right. You have John declaring, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit." Joh 3.6 This passage evidently proves that what is not born of the Spirit, is flesh.

Otherwise that division of Christ would not stand, by which he divides all men into two parties, the flesh and the Spirit. You have the nerve to pass over this passage, I say, as if it did not teach you what you were

And you scurry away to another subject, as is your manner. You hold out to us meanwhile, how John says, 'Believers are born of God, and made sons of God; indeed, gods and new creatures.' You give no heed to the conclusion which that division leads to, but you teach us in superfluous words, who those are whom the other part of the division comprehends.

You trust in your rhetoric, as if there was nobody to observe this most crafty transition and dissimulation of yours.

It is hard to give you credit for not being artful and chameleon-like here.

The man who labours in the Scriptures with the wiliness and hypocrisy which you employ over them, may safely enough profess that he is not yet taught by the Scriptures, but that he wishes to be taught.

On the contrary, he wishes nothing less, and only chatters in this way, so that he may disparage that most clear light which is in the Scriptures, and may give a blessing to his own obstinacy. Thus the Jews maintain to this day, that what Christ, and the Apostles, and the Church have taught, is not proved by the Scriptures. Heretics cannot be taught anything by the Scriptures. The Papists have not yet been taught by the Scriptures, though even the stones cry out the truth. Perhaps you are waiting for a passage to be produced from the Scriptures, which will consist of these letters and syllables: 'The principal part in man is flesh;' or 'that which is most excellent in man is flesh.' And till then, you mean to march off as an invincible conqueror. This is as if the Jews demanded that a sentence be produced from the Prophets consisting of these words: 'Jesus, the son of a carpenter, born of the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem, is the Messiah, and the Son of God.'

Here, where you are compelled to admit our conclusion by this manifest sentiment, you instead prescribe the letters and syllables which we are to produce for you. Elsewhere, when you are conquered both by the letters and the sentiment, you have your tropes; your knots to untie, and your

"sober explanation." Everywhere you find something to oppose to the divine Scriptures. And this is no wonder, when you do nothing but search for something to oppose to them. One time you run to the interpretations of the ancients; another time to the absurdities of reason. And when neither of these serve your purpose, you talk about things that are afar off, and things that are nearby, to avoid being confined to the text immediately before you. What shall I say? Proteus is no Proteus, compared with you. But you cannot slip out of our hands even by these artifices.

What victories did the Arians boast, because those letters and syllables omowsiov (homoousios) were not contained in the Scriptures: considering it nothing, that the reality affirmed by that word is most decisively proved by other words. But let even impiety and iniquity herself judge whether this is the acting of a good mind — I will not say of a pious one — which desires to be instructed.

Take your victory, then — I confess myself conquered — these letters and syllables, 'the most excellent thing in man is but flesh,' are not found in the Scriptures. But do you see what sort of a victory you have, when I prove that testimonies are found in the greatest abundance to the fact that not one portion, or the most excellent thing in man— or the principal part of man — is flesh; but that the whole man is flesh. And not only so, but that the whole people is flesh. And as though this were not enough, that the whole human race is flesh. For Christ says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." Untie your knots, imagine your tropes, follow the interpretation of the ancients, or turn elsewhere and discourse about the Trojan war, so that you may not see or hear the text which is before you.

It is not matter of faith with us, but we both see and feel that the whole human race is born of the flesh. We are therefore compelled to believe what we do not see: namely, that the whole human race is flesh, on the authority of Christ's teaching. Now, therefore, we leave it to the Sophists to doubt and dispute whether the hegemonikon, or leading part in man, is comprehended in the whole man, the whole people, the whole race of man. We know that in the subject, 'whole human race,' is comprehended the body and the soul, with all their powers and operations, with all their vices and virtues, with all their folly and wisdom, with all their justice and injustice.

All things are flesh because all things mind the flesh (i.e., the things which are their own), and are destitute of the glory of God and of the Spirit of God, as Paul says in Rom. 3.

SECT. 43. Heathen virtue is God's abhorrence.

As to what you say, therefore, that:

'Every affection of man is not flesh, but there is affection which is called soul, there is affection which is called spirit. By the latter, we strive after whatever things are honourable — just as the philosophers strove, who taught that death should be encountered a thousand times sooner than allow ourselves in any base act, even if we knew that men would be ignorant of it, and God would forgive it.'

I reply, it is easy for a man who believes nothing, to assuredly believe anything, and say anything. Let your friend Lucian ask you, not I, whether you can show us a single individual out of the whole human race

(you will be twice or seven times a Socrates if you please) who has exhibited what you mention here, and what you say that they taught. Why do you tell stories, then, in vain words? Could someone strive after honourable things if he did not even know what honourable is? You call it honourable, perhaps (to hunt out the most eminent example), that they died for their country, for their wives and children, and for their parents; or that, to avoid belying themselves or betraying these relations, they endured exquisite torments. Such were C. Scaevola, M. Regulus, and others. But what can you display in all these, save an outside show of good works? Have you looked into their hearts?

No, it appeared at the same time, on the surface of their performance, that they were doing all these things for their own glory, for they were not ashamed to confess, and to make it their boast, that they were seeking their own glory. For it was glory burning them through and through, which led even these Romans, according to their own testimony, to do whatever they did that was virtuous. This same thing is true both of the Greeks and the Jews, and also of the whole human race.

Now, although this is honourable among men, still nothing can be more dishonourable in the sight of God; indeed, it was the most impious and consummate sacrilege in his sight, that they did not act for the glory of God, nor did they glorify him as God, but by the most impious sort of robbery, they stole the glory from God and ascribed it to themselves. So that, they were never less honourable and more vile, than while shining forth in their most exalted virtues. But now, how could they act for the glory of God, when they knew nothing of God and of his glory? Not because these did not appear, but because the flesh did not allow them to see the glory of God, through the rage and madness with which they were raving after their own glory. Here then, you have the chieftain spirit

(hegemonikon), that principal part of man striving after honourable things— i.e., exhibiting itself as the robber of God's glory, and affecters of his Majesty — in the case of those men most of all, those who are the most honourable and most illustrious for their consummate virtues. Deny now, if you can, that these men are flesh, and in a lost state through ungodly affection.

Indeed, I imagine that Diatribe was not so much offended with its being said that man is flesh or spirit, when she read it according to the Latin translation, 'man is carnal or spiritual.'

For we must grant this peculiarity among many others with the Hebrew tongue, that when it says, 'Man is flesh or spirit,' it means the same as we do when we say, 'Man is carnal or spiritual;' just as the Latins say, 'The wolf is a sad thing for the folds.' 'Moisture is a sweet thing to the sown corn;' or when they say that, 'man is wickedness and malice itself.' Thus holy Scripture, too, by an expression of intensity, calls man flesh as though he were carnality itself. This is because he has an excessive relish for the things of the flesh, and none for anything else — just as it also calls him spirit, because he relishes, seeks, does, and endures only the things of the Spirit.

She may ask this question, indeed, which still remains: 'Even if the whole man, and that which is most excellent in man, is called flesh, does it follow that whatever is flesh must immediately be called ungodly?'

Whoever does not have the Spirit of God, I call ungodly: for the Scripture declares that the Spirit is given for this very purpose, that he may justify

625 626 the ungodly. Again, when Christ distinguishes the Spirit from the flesh by saying "That which is born of the flesh is flesh;" and adds that one who is born of the flesh cannot see the kingdom of God, it evidently follows that whatever is flesh, is ungodly, is under the wrath of God, and is far from the kingdom of God.

Now, if it is far from the kingdom and Spirit of God, it must necessarily follow that it is under the kingdom and spirit of Satan — there being no middle kingdom between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan; these perpetually fight against each other. These considerations prove that the most consummate virtues among the heathens — the best sayings of their philosophers, and the most eminent actions of their citizens —however well they may be spoken, and however honourable they may appear in the sight of the world — are truly but flesh in the sight of God, and services rendered to Satan's kingdom; that is, they are impious and sacrilegious, and in all respects evil.

SECT. 44. Consequences of this assumption respecting a part in man which is not 'flesh.'

But let us for a moment suppose that Diatribe's assertion stands good: that the whole constitution of man is not flesh (i.e., wicked); but part of it, which we call spirit, is honest and sound. See what absurdity follows from this — not in the sight of human reason, it is true; but with reference to the whole religion of Christ, and to the principal articles of the faith.

For if the most excellent part in man is not ungodly, lost, and damned, but only the fleshly part — that is, the grosser and inferior affections — then what sort of a Redeemer would we make Christ out to be? Would we represent the worth of his most precious blood-shedding as so small, that it only redeemed the vilest part in man; while the most excellent part in man is strong of itself, and has no need of Christ? From now on, then, we must preach Christ, not as the Redeemer of the whole man, but of man's most worthless part, that is, the flesh; while man is his own redeemer in his better part.

Choose whichever of the two you please. If the better part of man is sound, it does not stand in need of Christ as a Redeemer.

If it does not stand in need of Christ, then it triumphs over Christ with a glory superior to his for curing itself, which is the better part; whereas

Christ cures only the more worthless. Then again, the kingdom of Satan will also be nothing. It will reign over the viler part of man, while it is itself rather ruled by man, as to his better part. Thus it will be brought to pass by this dogma concerning the principal part of man, that man is exalted above both Christ and the devil; that is, he will be made God of Gods, and Lord of Lords. What then becomes of that approvable opinion, which affirmed that Freewill can will nothing good? Here, on the contrary, Diatribe contends that this same Freewill is the principal part, and the sound part, and the honest part — that which has no need even of Christ, but can do more than God himself and the devil can. I mention this, as in former instances, my Erasmus, so that you may see again, how dangerous a thing it is to attempt sacred and divine things without the Spirit of God, under the rash guidance of human reason.

If, then, Christ is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, it follows that the whole world is under sin, damnation, and the devil; and the distinction between principal parts, and not principal parts, avails nothing. For 'the world' signifies men who relish worldly things in all parts of their frame.

SECT. 45. Luther falsely charged.

Authority of the ancients is abused, but good for nothing — if good, it contradicts Erasmus.

'If the whole man, even when regenerated by faith, is nothing but flesh, what becomes of the spirit which is born of the Spirit? What becomes of the son of God? What becomes of the new creature? I would like to be informed about these things.'

So much for Diatribe. Where to, where to so fast, my dearest Diatribe?

What are you dreaming about? You desire to learn how it is that the spirit in man, which is born of the Spirit of God, can be flesh? O how happy and secure is this victory, under the flush of which you insult over your vanquished one, as though it were impossible that I could stand my ground here! Meanwhile, you would gladly make an ill use of the authority of the ancients, who talk about certain seeds of honesty being sown by nature in the minds of men. First of all, you may, if you please and for all I care, use or abuse the authority of the ancients.

It is your look-out, what you believe when you believe men who dictate their own opinions without any authority from the word of God. And perhaps it is not a matter of religious anxiety which torments you so much, about what any man believes. For you so easily give credit to men, without heeding whether what they say is certain or uncertain in the sight of God.

I too have my question to propose for information: when did I ever teach what you so freely and so publicly impute to me? Could anyone be so mad as to say that the man who has been born of the Spirit is nothing but flesh? I decidedly separate flesh and Spirit as substances that are at variance with each other. And I affirm, in unison with the sacred oracle, that the man who has not been born again by faith, is flesh. I further affirm that the regenerate man is flesh, only so far as it pertains to that remainder of the flesh in him, which fights against the first-fruits of the received Spirit. I cannot think you so base as to wilfully have feigned this by way of exciting ill-will against me. Otherwise, what could you have imputed to me of a more atrocious nature? But either you know nothing of my matters, or you seem unequal to the weight of the subject. You are so pressed and confounded by it, that you do not sufficiently remember what you say either against me, or for yourself. For in believing, upon the authority of the ancients, that some seeds of honesty are implanted in the minds of men by nature, you again speak with a degree of forgetfulness, having asserted before that Freewill can will nothing good. I do not know how this inability to will anything good, is compatible with some seeds of honesty. Thus I am perpetually compelled to remind you of the point which is at issue in the cause you have undertaken to plead — the one from which you are perpetually departing through forgetfulness, and maintaining a proposition different from the one you set out with.

SECT. 46. Jer. 10.23-24 defended.

Another passage is Jer 10.23-24: "I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not his; nor is it in the power of any man to walk and direct his steps."

This text, she says, pertains to the prosperity of event, rather than to the power of Freewill.

Here again, Diatribe confidently introduces her gloss at her pleasure, as if she had a sort of plenipotentiary authority over Scripture. But what need is there for such authoritativeness in this man, to enable him to consider the sense and scope of the Prophet? 'It is enough,' says Mr.

Erasmus; 'therefore it is so.' If we allow the adversaries of the truth, this lust for glossing, what will they not gain? Let him teach us this gloss from the context, then, and we will believe him. On the contrary, I will show from that very context, that while the Prophet sees himself engaged in teaching the ungodly with so much importunity, and to no purpose, he at the same time perceives that his word avails nothing unless God teaches it within. And therefore, it is not at the disposal of man to hear and to will good.

Perceiving this, and alarmed at the thought of God's judgment, he begs Him to correct him with justice, if he must be corrected absolutely; but that he not be delivered over to the wrath of God, together with the ungodly, whom God suffers to be hardened and to continue in unbelief.

But let us suppose, however, that this passage is to be understood as speaking of prosperous and adverse events. What if this very gloss were to most effectually subvert Freewill? This new evasion is invented, it is true, in order for persons who are unpractised and unskilled in falsehood, may fancy they have received a satisfactory explanation of the text. This is the same sort of trick which is practised in the attempt to evade the necessity of a consequence. They do not see that they are that much more ensnared and entrapped by these evasions, than by the plain meaning of the words — so misled are they by these new terms! Why, if the event of temporal concerns and transactions over which man is constituted lord and master (Genesis 1), is not under our own control, then how will that celestial substance, the grace of God, which is dependent upon the will of God alone, be under our control? Can the effort of Freewill obtain eternal salvation, when it cannot stay the printer's dagger, or keep even a hair of one's head in place? Have we no power to get possession of the creature, and yet have power to get possession of the Creator? Why are we so mad? For a man to strive after good or evil, implies by far the greatest degree of mastery over events. This is because, whichever of the two he is striving after, he is much more liable to be deceived, and has less liberty, than when he is striving after money, glory, or pleasure.

What exquisite escape, then, has your gloss effected? While it denies man's freedom in paltry creature events, it proclaims it in the high events of God. It is like saying, 'Codrus cannot pay half a crown, but he can pay millions of guineas.' I am surprised, too, that Diatribe, who has so persecuted that saying of Wickliff's up to here, 'all things happen by necessity,' should now of her own accord concede that events are

'Besides, however much you force it,' she says, 'so that it may bear on the subject of Freewill, does not everybody confess that no one can maintain an upright course of life without the grace of God? Meanwhile, however, we also strive according to our own ability, to the extent that we pray daily, "O Lord my God, direct my way in your sight." The one who sues for help, does not lay aside endeavour.'

Diatribe thinks that what she answers is not a straw man; provided she not be silent, but say something. Having done so, she would be thought to have satisfied everybody; so confident is she in her own authority.

The thing to be proved was whether we strive by means of our own strength; the thing she proves is that she endeavours by praying. Is she mocking us? Is she making fun of the Papists? Whoever prays, prays by means of the Spirit; indeed, the Spirit himself prays in us (Rom 8.26).

How is the power of Freewill proved by the endeavour of the Holy Spirit?

Is Freewill the same thing as the Holy Spirit in Diatribe's account? Are we at present discussing what the power of the Spirit is? Diatribe leaves me this passage of Jeremiah thus untouched and unconquerable; and only produces this gloss of her own brain: 'We also strive with our own strength;' and Luther is obliged to believe her — if he pleases.

SECT. 47. Prov. 16.1 defended.

So again, she maintains that the saying in Proverbs 16.1 also belongs to events: "The preparation of the heart is man's, the government of the tongue is the Lord's."

As if we should be satisfied with this ipse dixit of hers, and require no other authority! And it is surely more than enough answer, that if we even grant this to be its meaning, which applies it to events, then clearly the victory is mine, according to what I said last: since Freewill is nothing in our own works and events, then much more is it nothing in the works and But observe how sharp she is: 'How can it be man's work to prepare the heart, when Luther affirms that everything is done by necessity?'

I reply, 'Since events are not in our own power, as you acknowledge, how can it be man's work to bring matters to their issue?'

SECT. 48. Much in Proverbs for Take for my answer, the answer which you have given me. No, truly, we must work especially on this account, because all future things are uncertain to us. As the Preacher says, "In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand, because you do not know whether this or that will spring up." I say, they are uncertain to us as to knowledge, but they are necessary as to event. Their necessity inspires us with that fear of God, which is our antidote against presumption and security; while their uncertainty begets a confidence which fortifies our minds against despair.

But she returns to her old song that, 'In the book of Proverbs many things are said in favour of Freewill,' such as this, 'Confess your works to the Lord,' Do you hear, she asks? Your works. — That is, there are many imperative and conjunctive verbs in that book, and there are many pronouns in the second person: so Freewill is proved by such supporters.

For instance, confess; therefore you can confess: your works; therefore you do them. So that saying, "I am your God," you would understand to mean, 'you make me your God,' "Your faith has made you whole." Do you hear? "Your faith." Expound it this way, and you make yourself to have faith,' And now you have proved Freewill. — I am not mocking here, but showing that Diatribe is not in earnest when pleading this cause.

That saying in Prov 16.4, "The Lord has made all things for himself; even the wicked for the day of evil," she absolutely moulds into a new shape by words of her own; urging in excuse for God, that He has not made any

It is as if I spoke of creation, and not of that constant operation of God on created things, by which God actuates even the wicked; as I have already said about Pharaoh.

God makes the wicked man, not by creating evil, or an evil creature (which is impossible), but the seed being corrupted upon which God operates, an evil man is made or created. This is not by the fault of the Maker, but through the corruptness of the material.

Nor has that saying from the twenty-first chapter any efficacy in her view, "The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord; he inclines it wherever he will." (Pro 21.1) It is not necessary, she says, that he who inclines, compels — as if we were speaking about compulsion, and not rather about a necessity of immutability!

By God's inclining of the heart is meant, not that sleepy, lazy thing which Diatribe pretends; but that most efficacious operation of God, which the man cannot avoid or change; and by which he necessarily has such a will as God has given him, and such a will as God hurries along with His own motion. I have spoken to this point already.

Besides, since Solomon speaks of the king's heart, Diatribe thinks that this text is improperly drawn to express a general sentiment; rather, it means what Job says in another place, "He makes a hypocrite reign for the sins of the people." Job 33.30. At length she concedes that the king is moved by God to evil, but in some way such as this: God allows the king to be driven by his passions, in order that He may chastise his people.'

I reply, whether God permits or inclines, the very act of permitting or inclining arises from the will and operation of God. This is because the king's will cannot escape the actuation of the omnipotent God, in that every man's will is hurried on by Him to will and to do, whether it is good or evil.

As to my having made a general proposition out of the particular one about the king's will; I have done so, as I imagine, neither unseasonably, nor unwisely. For if the king's heart, which seems to be especially free and to have lordship over others, cannot however will otherwise than God would have inclined it, then how much less can any of the rest of men do so? And this same consequence would stand good, not only with respect to the king's will, but also with respect to any man's will. For if one man, however private, cannot will before God except as God inclines him, the same must be said of all men. So the fact that Balaam could not say what he pleased, is an evident proof contained in the Scriptures, that man is not the free chooser or doer of his own law or work. Otherwise there would be no such thing as examples in the Scriptures.

SECT. 49. John 15.5 maintained.

After affirming that many testimonies, such as Luther collects from this book of Proverbs, might indeed be brought together, she claims they would be such that, by a commodious interpretation, they might be made to stand up for Freewill, as well as against it. At length she adduces that Achillean and inevitable lance of Luther's from John 15.5, "Without me you can do nothing," etc.

I too commend the skill of this exquisite orator of Freewill, in teaching us, first of all, to shape the testimonies of Scripture by convenient interpretations, as seems good to our own minds, so that they may in reality stand up for Freewill. That is, they may make out, not what they ought to do, but what we please. And then, pretending to have such a great dread of one in particular which she calls Achillean, that the stupid reader may hold the rest in exquisite contempt when this one has been vanquished. But I will look sharply after this magniloquous and heroic

Diatribe, to see by what force she gets the better of my Achilles; when she has not yet hit a single common soldier — no, not even a Thersites — but she has destroyed herself most miserably by her own weapons.

So then, she lays hold of this little word 'nothing,' and slays it by the aid of many words and many examples — dragging it to this result by a commodious interpretation, that 'nothing' may be the same as small and imperfect. That is, she presents in other words, what the Sophists have previously taught on this passage — "without me you can do nothing;" that is, you can do nothing perfectly. Such is the power of her rhetoric, that she contrives to make this gloss, which has been stale and mouseeaten for a long time now, appear like something new. And she insists on it in such a way that you might think she has been the first to bring it forward; that it was never heard of before; and that it is little less than a miracle which she is exhibiting by producing it. Meanwhile, she is quite careless and thoughtless about the text itself, and its context both before and after, from which the knowledge of it is to be sought.

Not to mention that her aim is to show, by so many words and examples, how this word 'nothing' may be taken here for 'something small and imperfect.' It is as if, truly, we were disputing about what might be taken so, when the thing to be proved is whether it ought to be taken so. The whole of her magnificent interpretation therefore amounts but to this, if anything: that this passage of John's is made uncertain and ambiguous.

And what wonder is this, when it is Diatribe's one and only object to make out that the Scriptures are everywhere ambiguous (lest she be compelled to use them); and the testimonies of the Fathers are decisive

— that she may have liberty to abuse the Scriptures. This is strange reverence for God, which makes His words useless, and man's words profitable!

SECT. 50. Inconsistency charged. An advantage is given to heretics.

But the finest thing of all is to see how consistent she is with herself.

'Nothing' may be understood as 'a little.' And in this sense, she says, it is most true that we can do nothing without Christ. For he speaks of Gospel fruit, which befalls none but those who are abiding in the Vine; that is,

Here, she herself confesses that fruit befalls none but those who abide in the Vine; and she does this in that self-same commodious interpretation by which she proves that 'nothing' means the same as 'small and imperfect.' Perhaps we should also interpret the adverb 'not' commodiously, so as to signify that gospel fruit befalls men outside of Christ in some measure, or in a small and imperfect degree. Thus we would announce that ungodly men, without Christ, with the devil reigning in them and fighting against Christ, may yield some portion of the fruits of life; in other words, that the enemies of Christ may act for Christ. But no more of this.

I would like to be informed here, how heretics are to be resisted, who will avail themselves of this law everywhere in their interpretations of the Scriptures, and insist upon understanding 'nothing' and 'not' as denoting an imperfect substance. Such as, 'without him was nothing made;' that is,

'very little' was made. 'The fool has said in his heart there is no God;' that is, 'God is imperfect.' 'He has made us and not we ourselves;' that is, we made a very little of ourselves. And who can number the passages of Scripture in which the words 'nothing' and 'not' occur? Should we say here that the suitableness of the interpretation is to be looked at? What heretic does not consider his own interpretation suitable? What! I suppose this is an untying of knots, to open such a window of licence to corrupted minds and deceiving spirits! To you, who make havoc of the certainty of sacred Scripture, I can readily believe that such a licence of interpretation would be commodious. But to us who are labouring to settle the consciences of men, nothing can arise of a more inconvenient, a more hurtful, a more pestilent nature than this commodiousness which you recommend. Hear, therefore, mighty conqueress of Luther's Achilles.

Unless you prove that 'nothing' in this place, not only may but must be taken for 'a little,' you will get nothing by all this multitude of words and examples, except that you have been fighting fire with dry stubble. What have I to do with your maybe, when you are required to prove that it

'must be'? Until you have done this, I stand fast in the natural and grammatical signification of the word, laughing at your armies, no less than at your triumphs!

What has now become of that approvable opinion which declares that Freewill can will nothing good? But perhaps the principle of commodious interpretation has arrived here at last. It makes out that 'nothing good' means 'something good,' by an altogether unheard-of art, both of grammar and of logic, which explains that 'nothing' means the same as 'something.' This is what logicians would consider an impossibility, since they are contradictory? What becomes of the assertion that we believe

Satan is the prince of this world, reigning (according to Christ and Paul) in the wills and minds of men, who are his captives and serve him? That roaring lion,1Pet 5.8 truly, is the implacable and restless enemy of the grace of God and of man's salvation. Will he allow it to come to pass, that man, who is his slave and a part of his kingdom, should endeavour after good, by any motion towards it, at any moment, such that he may escape

Satan's tyranny? Would he not rather with all his might, incite and urge man both to will and to do what is contrary to grace? The righteous, who act under the influence of the divine Spirit, barely resist him so as to will and to do what is good — such is his rage against them.

You pretend that the human will is a thing placed in a free medium, and left to itself. You have no difficulty in pretending at the same time, that the effort of the will is towards either side. This is because you imagine that both God and the devil are afar off, mere spectators of this mutable and free will. You do not believe that they are impellers and agitators of this bondwill of ours, each of them most determined warriors on the side on which he acts. Believe this fact only, and our sentiment stands in full strength, with Freewill laid prostrate at its feet, as I have already shown.

For, either the kingdom of Satan is a mere nothing in men, and so Christ is a liar; or else, if his kingdom is such as Christ describes it to be, then

Freewill is nothing but Satan's captive packhorse, which cannot have freedom unless the devil is first of all cast out by the finger of God.

Do you perceive from this, my Diatribe, what it is, and of what power, which your author (detesting Luther's positiveness of assertion) tends to say, 'Luther drives his cause with a mighty force of Scripture, but all his

Scripture is pulled to pieces by one little word?" Who does not know that the whole body of Scripture might be pulled to pieces by one little word? We knew this well enough before we ever heard the name of Erasmus. But the question is, whether it is satisfactory that the Scripture should be pulled to pieces by one little word? The matter in dispute is, whether it is rightly pulled to pieces thus, and whether it must be pulled to pieces thus. Let a man direct his view to this point, and he will see how easy it is to pull the Scriptures to pieces, and how detestable Luther's positiveness is. But the truth is, he will see that it is not a parcel of little words, nor yet all the gates of hell, that can do anything towards accomplishing this object.

SECT. 51. Luther proves the negative.

Let us then do what Diatribe cannot do for her affirmative. Though we have no business doing so, let us prove our negative. By force of argument, we will extort the concession that the word 'nothing' here, not only may, but must be taken to signify not 'a little,' but what it naturally expresses. I will do this by arguments made in addition to that invincible one which has already given me victory; namely, that words should be kept to their natural meaning, unless the contrary has been demonstrated. Diatribe neither has done this, nor can do it here.

First, then, I extort this concession from the very nature of the case. It has been proved by testimonies of Scripture, which are neither ambiguous nor obscure, that Satan is by far the most powerful and crafty

Prince of the princes of this world, as I have said. Under his reign, the human will — which is now no longer free and its own master, but the slave of sin and Satan — cannot will anything but what this prince of hers is pleased to let her will. Nor will he allow her to will anything good. Even if Satan did not rule her, sin itself, whose servant man is, would be a sufficient clog upon her to prevent her willing good.

Secondly, the very sequel of the discourse — which Diatribe in her valour despises, although I had commented on it very copiously in my assertions — extorts the same concession. For Christ goes on thus, in John 15.6: "If a man does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch, and he withers, and they gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burns." I say, Diatribe has passed over these words, acting the part of a most profound rhetorician, in hopes that this transition would be incomprehensible to such unlettered readers as the Lutherans.

But you will perceive that Christ, becoming the interpreter of his own simile of the branch and the vine here, expressly declares what he would have the word 'nothing' understood to be; namely, that apart from Christ, a man is cast out and withers. And what else can 'cast out' and 'withers' mean, if not that he is delivered over to the dominion of the devil, and is continually made worse? And to grow worse and worse is not to have power, nor to endeavour. The withering branch, the more it withers, the more it is made ready for burning. If Christ had not thus opened and applied this simile, nobody would have dared to open and apply it this way. It is therefore established that the word 'nothing' must be taken literally here, according to its natural import.

Let us now also look into the examples by which Diatribe proves that 'nothing' in some places is taken for 'a little,' in order to show that in this part of her argumentation also, she is nothing, and effects nothing.

Yet, even if she had proved something here, she would have effected nothing — such a perfect nothing is she, in all her parts and in all her

'It is a common saying that a man does nothing, if he does not obtain what he seeks; but still, the man who endeavours frequently makes some way towards his object.'

I reply that I never heard that this is a common saying; you take the liberty of imagining so. Words (so far as they give names to things 658) must be considered according to the subject matter, and with relation to the intention of the speaker. Now, a man never calls that 'nothing,' which he endeavours when in action; nor is he speaking of his endeavour when he talks about 'nothing,' but of its effect. This is what a man is looking at when he says, 'that man does nothing, or effects nothing;' that is, 'he has not reached his goal; he has not obtained it.' — Besides, if your instance proves anything (which is not the case, however), it makes more for me than for you. For this is the very point I am maintaining and wish to have proved: that Freewill does many things which are but nothing in the sight of God. What is the use of her endeavouring, if she does not gain what she seeks? Hence, let Diatribe turn whichever way she will, she founders and confutes herself. This is usually the case with advocates who plead a bad cause.

SECT. 52. 1Cor 3.7; 13.2; Joh 3.27.

Thus again, Diatribe is unhappy in her instance which she adduces from Paul, "Neither is he that plants anything, nor he that waters, but God who gives the increase." (1Cor 3.7) She says that what is of little moment, and useless of itself, Paul calls 'nothing,'

Who is this? What, you call the ministry of the word 'useless of itself,' and 'of small moment' — that ministry which Paul extols with such great praises everywhere else, and especially in 2Cor 3.5-8, where he calls it the ministration of life and the ministration of glory? Again you are guilty of neither considering the subject matter, nor the intention of the speaker.

With respect to giving the increase, the planter and the waterer are nothing; but with respect to planting and watering they are not nothing.

For it is the chief work of the Spirit in the church of God, to teach and to exhort. This is what Paul means, and his words very clearly express this.

But again, granting that this inapplicable example also applies, like the other, it will stand on my side. For I am maintaining that Freewill is

'nothing ' — that is, it is 'useless of itself' before God, as you explain this text. For we speak of this kind of existence, well-knowing that the ungodly will is 'a something,' and not 'a mere nothing.'

So again, with regard to that saying in 1Cor 13.2, "If I do not have charity, I am nothing." I do not see why she adduces this example, unless she quests after number and multitude, or thinks that we lack arms with which to dispatch her. For the man who does not have charity, is truly and strictly 'nothing' before God.

I maintain the same thing with respect to Freewill. So that this example also stands up for me against Diatribe herself, unless Diatribe is still ignorant of what our ground of battle is. We are not speaking of an existence of nature; but of an existence of grace, as they call it. We know that Freewill performs certain natural acts; that she eats, and drinks, and begets children, and rules the house. So that Diatribe might have forborne mocking us with that nonsensical saying, which is like the ramble of delirium, that if we insist on this word 'nothing,' then a man cannot even sin, without Christ.' On the contrary, even Luther admits that Freewill has a power to commit sin, though it has no other power!

The wise Diatribe, you see, must have her joke, even on a serious subject.

What we affirm is that, without the grace of God, man still remains under the control of the general omnipotence of God, who performs, who moves, who carries away all things by a necessary and infallible course.

But what the man so carried away does, is "nothing" —that is, it is nothing before God, and it is accounted nothing but sin. Thus — with regard to a being of grace — he is nothing who does not have charity.

After confessing of her own accord that we are treating evangelical fruit in this verse, fruit which is not produced without Christ, why does

Diatribe then instantly turn aside from the question at issue, begin a strange song, and cavil about natural operations and human fruits? Why

— if not that a man who is destitute of the truth, is never consistent with So again, that saying in John 3.27, "A man can receive nothing, unless it is given to him from heaven."

John speaks of a man who assuredly was something already, and he denies that this man receives anything; that is to say, receives the Spirit with his gifts. For he speaks about this, and not about nature. He had no need of Diatribe's instructions, surely, to teach him that the man already had eyes, nose, ears, mouth, mind, will, reason, and all the other properties of a man. Perhaps Diatribe thinks that when the Baptist spoke of a man, he was so mad as to be thinking of Plato's chaos, or Leucippus' vacuum, or Aristotle's infinite, or some other 'nothing,' which was at last to be made 'something' by a gift from heaven! What! Is she bringing examples from Scripture to purposely sport in this way with so weighty a subject? To what purpose is it, then, that she brings forward such a redundancy of material? Is it to teach us that fire, escape from evil, effort towards good, and all the rest, proceed from heaven — as if any man did not know this, or denied it?

I am speaking of grace; or, as she has expressed it herself, of Christ and gospel fruit. But meanwhile, she chatters away about nature, so that she may gain time, protract the cause, and throw dust in the eyes of the unlearned reader. With all this, however, she not only fails to adduce a single example of 'nothing' taken for 'a little ' — which is what she undertook to do — but she even manifestly betrays herself to be one who neither knows, nor cares, what Christ is, or what grace is, or how grace differs from nature. This is a distinction which even the rudest of the Sophists knew, and beat out in their schools by the most common use.

Nor is she in the least aware, at the same time, that all her examples make for me, and against herself. Even this saying of the Baptist, "A man can receive nothing unless it is given to him from heaven," proves that Freewill is nothing. Ah, this is the way to conquer my Achilles: Diatribe puts armaments into his hands with which to destroy her in her nakedness and defencelessness. Thus it is, that those Scriptures by which the inflexible dogmatist Luther drives all before him, are somehow scattered by a single wordling.

SECT. 53. Diatribe's troop of similes is nothing, and go against her. — What she should have spoken to.

After this, she details a great many similes by which all she does is to carry off the foolish reader, as her manner is, into foreign matters; meanwhile, quite forgetting her own cause. For instance, God preserves the ship, it is true, but still the mariner conducts it into port; so that the mariner does something. It is a distinct work, truly, which this simile ascribes to God on the one hand — that of preserving — and to the mariner on the other, that of guiding the ship into port. If it proves anything besides this, it proves that the whole work of preserving is

God's; and that the whole work of guiding is the seaman's. But still, it is an exquisite and apt simile!

So too, the husbandman carries the productions of the earth into his barns; but God has given them. Here again, distinct works are ascribed to God and to man — unless she chooses to make the husbandman the creator at the same time, and thus even the joint giver of the fruits. But beyond this, let the same works be assigned to God and to man by these similes, what do they amount to, if not that the creature co-operates with the operating God? Are we now disputing about cooperation, then? Are we not disputing, rather, about the several force and operation of Freewill? What a flight this is! The orator was to have spoken about a palm tree, but has talked only about a gourd. A cask was to be turned; why then does a pitcher come out there?

I also know that Paul works together with God in teaching the Corinthians. He preaches without, while God teaches within: here the work of the two operators is a different one. In like manner, Paul also works together with God, when he speaks in the Spirit of God: and the work of the two is the same.

For this is what I assert and maintain, that God, when he works outside the confines of the grace of his Spirit, works all in all, even in the wicked.

For being the sole maker of all things, He also solely moves, drives, and carries on all things by the motion of his omnipotence. This these things cannot escape or change, but necessarily follow and obey; each according to the measure of its own power which God has given to it. So true is it, that even all wickednesses work together with him. Again, when he acts by the Spirit of grace in those whom he has made righteous — that is, in his own kingdom — He in like manner drives and moves them. And seeing that they are new creatures, they follow and work together with him; or rather, as Paul says, they are led by him. Rom 8.14

But this was not the place for these things. Our question is not, What can we do when God works? but, What can we do of ourselves? That is, being created out of nothing, can we do or endeavour anything through that general motion of omnipotence, towards preparing ourselves for the new creation of his Spirit? This question should have been answered, instead of turning us aside towards another question. We will answer this question, and our answer is this: before he is created to be a man, he does nothing and endeavours nothing towards making himself a creature; and afterwards, when he has been made and created, he does nothing and endeavours nothing towards continuing himself in being a creature.

Rather, each of these events takes place by the sole will of the omnipotent might and goodness of God. He creates and preserves us without ourselves, but He does not work in us without ourselves — seeing that we are those whom he has created and preserved for this very end: that He may work in us, and we may work together with Him. Col 1.29 This is true whether it is outside the confines of his kingdom by the acting of his general omnipotence, or within the confines of that kingdom by the special power of his Spirit.

So (we go on to say), before man is renewed to become a new creature of the kingdom of the Spirit, he does nothing, and endeavours nothing, towards preparing himself for that renewal and kingdom. And afterwards, once he has been created anew, he does nothing, and endeavours nothing, towards continuing himself in that kingdom. Rather, the Spirit alone does each of these things in us, both creating us anew without ourselves, and preserving us once we are so created. As James says, "Of his own will he begat us by the word of his power, that we might be the beginning of his creation;" Jas 1.18 speaking of the renewed creation. Still, He does not work in us without ourselves — seeing that we are those whom He has created anew and whom He preserves to this very end: that He might work in us, and that we might work together with Him. Thus, he preaches by us, has pity on the poor by us, comforts the afflicted by us. But what is ascribed to Freewill by this? Rather, what is left to it but nothing; absolute nothing?

SECT. 54. Inconsistency and audacity of Diatribe; takes up one subject and pursues another; argues by inversion.

Read the Diatribe in this part for five or six pages together, and you will find that all she does — first by lugging in similes of this sort, and afterwards by citing some of the most beautiful passages and parables from Paul's writings and from the Gospels — is to teach us that innumerable texts (as she puts it) are to be found in the Scriptures, which declare the cooperation and helping gifts of God.

Now, if I gather from these testimonies, that man can do nothing without the helping grace of God, then no works of man are good. But she, on the contrary, using a rhetorical inversion, concludes,

'No indeed, there is nothing which man cannot do with the assistance of God's grace; therefore, all man's works may be good. Well then, as many passages as there are in the word of God, which mention divine assistance; there are that many which maintain Freewill. Now, there are countless such passages. I have therefore conquered, if the question is decided by the number of testimonies,'

Thus she says. But do you think Diatribe was quite sober, or of sound mind, when she wrote these words? I will not impute it to malice and wickedness in her, that she preserves such a perfect consistency throughout her whole performance, in always handling topics other than those which she proposed to treat (unless perhaps she has a mind to destroy me by perpetual tiresomeness). However, if she has delighted herself by talking nonsense about so grave a subject, it will be my pleasure, in return, to expose to public scorn the absurdities which she has so wantonly promulgated.

First, then, I neither question, nor am I ignorant, that all the works of man may be good if they are done with the help of God's grace. Secondly,

I neither question, nor am I ignorant, that there is nothing which man cannot do with the help of God's grace. But I cannot sufficiently admire your negligence, that having commenced to write about the power of Freewill, you proceed to write on the power of divine grace. Having done this, as if all were stocks and stones, you are audacious enough to publicly say that Freewill is established by those passages of Scripture which extol God's helping grace.

Not only do you have the audacity to do this, but even to sing your own paean, as a most glorious, triumphing conqueror! I now know experientially, through this word and deed of yours, what Freewill is, and what her power is. 'She is mad.' What can it be in you, I ask, which speaks this way, if it is not this very Freewill?

But mad as you are, hear your own conclusions: Scripture extols the grace of God; therefore Scripture proves Freewill. Scripture extols the help which is derived from God's grace; therefore Scripture establishes

Freewill. What art of logic is it, I ask, from which you learned such conclusions? Why might it not be just the reverse? Grace is preached; therefore Freewill is exploded. The help which is afforded by grace is extolled; therefore Freewill is destroyed.

For, to what end is grace conferred? Is it so that the pride of Freewill, who is sufficiently strong of herself, may frolic and sport at a Bacchanalia, decorated with grace, as a sort of superfluous ornament? — Well then,

I too will draw an inference by inversion. Though confessedly I am no rhetorician, I will do it with a more solid rhetoric than yours. However many passages there are in the divine Scriptures which mention divine help, that many exclude Freewill. Now there are countless such passages.

If the question is to be decided by numbers, then, I have conquered.

For why do we need grace; and for what is the help of grace conferred, if not because Freewill can do nothing, and cannot will good — as this very

Diatribe has affirmed in that approvable opinion of hers? When grace is therefore extolled, and the help of grace is proclaimed, the impotency of Freewill is proclaimed in the same instant. This is that sound conclusion, and that legitimate consequence, which not even the gates of hell will overthrow. Mat 16.18

SECT. 55. Luther ends his defense of his own texts.

Here I make an end of maintaining my own texts against Diatribe's confutation of them, so that my book may not grow to an immoderate size. The rest (if any are worth noticing) will be considered in the assertion of my own sentiment. As to what Erasmus repeats in his

Epilogue, that if our sentiment stands, there are ever so many precepts, ever so many threatenings, ever so many promises, that are all made vain.

There is no place left either for merit or demerit, for reward or punishment — and there are other disagreeable consequences. These have so moved the greatest men, as to overthrow them. And again, it is difficult to defend the mercy, or even the justice of God, if God condemns those who sin necessarily.

I have given an answer to all these considerations already. Nor do I either tolerate, or receive, that golden mean which advises (with good intention,

I am willing to suppose) that we should concede a very small degree of power to Freewill, in order that the inconsistency of Scripture, and the forementioned inconveniences, may be more easily removed. The truth is, this golden mean neither assists the cause which it is meant to serve, nor gets us any further in the solution of difficulties. Unless you yield the whole and every thing to Freewill, as the Pelagians do, there remains inconsistency in the Scriptures: merit and reward are excluded, the mercy and justice of God are abrogated, and all those inconveniences which we aim to avoid by allowing a very small and inefficacious power to Freewill, remain in force, as I have already shown.

We must therefore come to the extremity of denying Freewill altogether, and referring everything to God. Then we will find that the Scriptures are not inconsistent with themselves, and that our inconveniences are either removed or rendered tolerable.

There is one thing, however, which I deplore, my Erasmus. And that is your persuading yourself that I plead this cause with more zeal than judgment. I cannot endure being charged with such hypocrisy, as to think one thing and write another. Nor is it true what you write about me, that I have been carried forward by the heat of self-defence to the point of now, for the first time, denying Freewill wholly, as if I had previously ascribed something to it. You will not be able to show this something, I well know, in any of my publications. There are theses and questions of mine, still available, in which I perpetually assert, to this very hour, that Freewill is a nothing, and a matter of mere name; such was the term I used about it.

Overcome by truth, provoked and compelled by disputation, thus I have been brought to think, and thus I have been brought to write. I have discussed the matter with a considerable degree of vehemence. If it is a crime, it is a crime to which I plead guilty. Indeed, it is my marvellous joy that this testimony should be borne by me to the world, in the cause of God. May God himself confirm this testimony in the last day! So none will then be more blessed than Luther; who is so greatly extolled by the testimony of his own age, as one who has not pleaded the cause of truth sluggishly or deceitfully, but with a high degree, maybe with an excess, of vehemence. Then I will happily escape that judgment spoken of by Jeremiah: "Cursed is the man who does the work of the Lord negligently."

Now, if I also seem a little severe upon your Diatribe, you must pardon me. It is not from ill-will toward you that I am so. Rather, I have been stirred up to it by the conviction that you were mightily depressing this cause, which is the cause of Christ, by your authority — while your knowledge, and the matter which you put forth, are not such that they entitle you to any superior consideration. And then, who has such a command of their temper everywhere, as not to grow heated somewhere?

Your desire for moderation has made you almost cold as ice in this treatise; but you not infrequently contrive to hurl fiery and exceedingly bitter darts, so as to seem absolutely virulent to your reader — unless he regards you with peculiar favour and indulgence. But all this has nothing to do with the cause. We should mutually forgive these asperities, seeing that we are but men, and that nothing different from humanity is