Bondage of the Will

Sections 156 through 168 of The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther, translated by Henry Cole. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Discussion, third part, concluded. Section 156 Now let us come to John, who is also a most copious and powerful subverter of free will. He, at the very outset, attributes to free will such blindness that it cannot even see the light of the truth. So far is it from possibility that it should endeavor after it. He speaks thus, The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. John 1.5 And directly afterwards, He was in the world, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own knew him not. Verses 10 through 11. What do you imagine he means by world? Will you attempt to separate any man from being included in this term, but him who is born again of the Holy Spirit? The term world is very particularly used by this apostle, by which he means the whole race of men. Whatever, therefore, he says of the world is to be understood of the whole race of men. And hence, whatever he says of the world is to be understood also of free will, as that which is most excellent in man. According to this apostle, then, the world does not know the light of truth. The world hates Christ and His. The world neither knows nor sees the Holy Spirit. The whole world is settled in enmity. All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Love not the world. Ye, saith he, are not of the world. The world cannot hate you, but it hateth me, because I testify of it that the works thereof are evil. All these, and many other like passages, are proclamations of what free will is, the principal part of the world, ruling the empire of Satan. For John also himself speaks of the world by antithesis, making the world to be everything in the world which is not translated into the kingdom of the Spirit. So also Christ saith to the apostles, I have chosen you out of the world, and ordained you, and so forth. John 15, 16 If, therefore, there were any in the world who, by the powers of free will, endeavored so as to attain unto good, which would be the case if free will could do anything, John certainly ought in reverence for these persons to have softened down the term, lest, by a word of such general application, he should involve them in all the evils of which he condemns the world. But as he does not this, it is evident that he makes free will guilty of all that is laid to the charge of the world. Because whatever the world does, it does by the power of free will, that is, by its will and by its reason, which are its most exalted faculties. He then goes on, But, as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1, 12-13 Having finished this distinctive division, he rejects from the kingdom of Christ all that is of blood, of the will of the flesh, and of the will of man. By blood, I believe, he means the Jews, that is, those who wished to be the children of the kingdom, because they were the children of Abraham and of the fathers, and hence gloried in their blood. By the will of the flesh, I understand the devoted efforts of the people which they exercised in the law and in works. For flesh here signifies the carnal without the spirit, who had indeed a will and endeavour, but who, because the spirit was not in them, were carnal. By the will of man, I understand the devoted efforts of all generally, that is, of the nations, or of any man whatever, whether exercised by the law or without the law. So that the sense is, they become the sons of God neither by the birth of the flesh, nor by a devoted observance of the law, nor by any devoted human effort whatever, but by a divine birth only. If, therefore, they be neither born of the flesh, nor brought up by the law, nor prepared by any human discipline, but are born again of God, it is manifest that free will here profits nothing. For I understand man, to signify here, according to the Hebrew manner of speech, any man, or all men, even as flesh is understood to signify, by antithesis, the people without the spirit, and the will of man I understand to signify the greatest power in man, that is, that principal part, free will. But be it so that we do not dwell thus upon the signification of the words singly, yet the sum and substance of the meaning is most clear, that John, by this distinctive division, rejects everything that is not of divine generation, since he says that men are made the sons of God none otherwise than by being born of God, which takes place, according to his own interpretation, by believing on his name. In this rejection, therefore, the will of man, or free will, as it is not of divine generation nor faith, is necessarily included. But if free will avail anything, the will of man ought not to be rejected by John, nor ought men to be drawn away from it, and sent to faith and to the new birth only, lest that of Isaiah should be pronounced against him, Woe unto you that call good evil! Whereas now, since he rejects alike all blood, the will of the flesh, and the will of man, it is evident that the will of man avails nothing more towards making men the sons of God than blood does, or the carnal birth. And no one doubts whether or not the carnal birth makes men the sons of God, for as Paul saith, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God. Romans 9.8, which he proves by the examples of Ishmael in Esau. Section 157 The same John introduces the Baptist speaking thus of Christ, And of his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. John 1.16 He says that grace is received by us out of the fullness of Christ. But for what merit or devoted effort? For grace, saith he, that is, of Christ. As Paul also saith, The grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. Romans 5.15 Where is now the endeavor of free will, by which grace is obtained? John and Paul here saith, That grace is not received for any devoted effort of our own, but even for the grace of another, or the merit of another, that is, of one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore it is either false that we receive our grace for the grace of another, or else it is evident that free will is nothing at all. For both cannot consist, that the grace of God is both so cheap that it may be obtained in common and everywhere by the little endeavor of any man, and at the same time so dear that it is given unto us only in and through the grace of one man, and he so great. And I would also that the advocates for free will be admonished in this place that when they assert free will they are deniers of Christ. For if I obtain grace by my own endeavors, what need have I of the grace of Christ for the receiving of my grace? Or what do I want when I have gotten the grace of God? For the diatribe has said, And all the sophists say that we obtain grace and are prepared for the reception of it by our own endeavors, not, however, according to worthiness, but according to congruity. This is plainly denying Christ, for whose grace the Baptist here testifies that we receive grace. For as to that fetch about worthiness and congruity, I have refuted that already and proved it to be a mere play upon empty words, while the merit of worthiness is really intended, and that to a more impious length than ever the Pelagians themselves went, as I have already shown. And hence the ungodly sophists, together with the diatribe, have more awfully denied the Lord Christ who bought us than ever the Pelagians or any heretics have denied him. So far is it from possibility that grace should allow of any particle or power of free will. But, however, that the advocates for free will deny Christ is proved not by this scripture only, but by their own very way of life. For by their free will they have made Christ to be unto them no longer a sweet mediator, but a dreaded judge, whom they strive to please by the intercessions of the virgin mother and of the saints, and also by variously invented works, by rites, ordinances, and vows, by all which they aim at appeasing Christ in order that he might give them grace. But they do not believe that he intercedes before God and obtains grace for them by his blood and grace, as it is here said, for grace. And as they believe, so it is unto them. For Christ is in truth an inexorable judge to them, and justly so. For they leave him who is a mediator and most merciful Savior and account his blood and grace of less value than the devoted efforts and endeavors of their free will. Section 158 Now let us hear an example of free will. Nicodemus is a man in whom there is everything that you can desire, which free will is able to do. For what does that man omit either of devoted effort or endeavor? He confesses Christ to be true and to have come from God. He declares his miracles. He comes by night to hear him and to converse with him. Does he not appear to have sought after by the power of free will those things which pertain unto piety and salvation? But mark what shipwreck he makes when he hears the true way of salvation by a new birth to be taught by Christ. Does he acknowledge it or confess that he ever sought after it? Nay, he revolts from it and is confounded. So much so that he does not only say he does not understand it, but heaves against it as impossible. How, says he, can these things be true? John 3.9 And no wonder! For who ever heard that man must be born again unto salvation of water and of the Spirit? Who ever thought that the Son of God must be exalted, that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life? Did the greatest and most acute philosophers ever make mention of this? Did the princes of this world ever possess this knowledge? Did the free will of any man ever attain unto this by endeavors? Does not Paul confess it to be wisdom hidden in a mystery, foretold indeed by the prophets, but revealed by the gospel, so that it was secret and hidden from the world? In a word, ask experience, and the whole world, human reason itself, and in consequence free will itself, is compelled to confess that it never knew Christ nor heard of Him before the gospel came into the world. And if it did not know Him, much less could it seek after Him, search for Him, or endeavor to come unto Him. But Christ is the way of truth, life, and salvation. It must confess, therefore, whether it will or know, that of its own powers it neither knew nor could seek after those things which pertain unto the way of truth and salvation. And yet, contrary to this, our own very confession and experience, like madmen, we dispute in empty words that there is in us that power remaining which can both know and apply itself unto those things which pertain unto salvation. This is nothing more or less than saying that Christ, the Son of God, was exalted for us when no one could ever have known it or thought of it, but that nevertheless this very ignorance is not an ignorance, but a knowledge of Christ, that is, of those things which pertain unto salvation. Do you not yet, then, see and palpably feel out that the assertors of free will are plainly mad while they call that knowledge which they themselves confess to be ignorance? Is this not to put darkness for light? Isaiah 5.20 But so it is, though God so powerfully stopped the mouth of free will by its own confession and experience, yet even then it cannot keep silence and give God the glory. Section 159 And now, farther, as Christ is said to be the way, the truth, and the life, John 14.6, and that by positive assertion so that whatever is not Christ is not the way, but error, is not the truth, but a lie, is not the life, but death, it of necessity follows that free will, as it is neither Christ nor in Christ, must be bound in error, in a lie, and in death. Where now will be found that medium and neuter that the power of free will which is not in Christ, that is in the way, the truth, and the life, is yet not of necessity either error, or a lie, or death? For if all things which are said concerning Christ and grace were not said by positive assertion, that they might be opposed to their contraries, that is, that out of Christ there is nothing but Satan, out of grace nothing but wrath, out of the light nothing but darkness, out of the life nothing but death, what, I ask you, would be the use of all the writings of the apostles, nay of the whole Scripture? The whole would be written in vain, because they would not fix the point that Christ is necessary, which nevertheless is their special design. And for this reason, because a medium would be found out which of itself would be neither evil nor good, neither of Christ nor of Satan, neither true nor false, neither alive nor dead, and perhaps neither anything nor nothing, and that would be called that which is most excellent and most exalted in the whole race of men. Take it therefore which way you will. If you grant that the Scriptures speak in positive assertion, you can say nothing for free will but that which is contrary to Christ. That is, you will say that error, death, Satan, and all evils reign in him. If you do not grant that they speak in positive assertion, you weaken the Scriptures, make them to establish nothing, not even to prove that Christ is necessary. And thus, while you establish free will, you make Christ void and bring the whole Scripture to destruction. And though you may pretend verbally that you confess Christ, yet in reality and in heart you deny him. For if the power of free will be not a thing erroneous altogether and damnable, but sees and wills those things which are good and meritorious and which pertain unto salvation, it is whole, it wants not the physician Christ, nor does Christ redeem that part of man. For what need is there for light and life when there is light and life already? Moreover, if that power be not redeemed, the best part in man is not redeemed, but is of itself good and whole. And then also God is unjust if he damn any man, because he damns that which is the most excellent in man and whole. That is, he damns him when innocent. For there is no man who has not free will, and although the evil man abused this, yet this power itself, according to what you teach, is not so destroyed but that it can and does endeavor towards good. And if it be such, it is without doubt good, holy, and just. Wherefore it ought not to be damned, but to be distinctly separated from the man who is to be damned. But this cannot be done, and even if it could be done, man would then be without free will. Nay, he would not be man at all. He would neither have merit nor demerit. He could neither be damned nor saved, but would be completely a brute, and no longer immortal. It follows, therefore, that God is unjust who damns that good, just, and holy power, which, though it be in an evil man, does not need Christ as the evil man does. Section 160 But let us proceed with John. He that believeth on him, saith he, is not condemned. But he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God. John 3.18 Tell me, is free will included in the number of those that believe, or not? If it be, then again it has no need of grace, because of itself it believes on Christ, whom of itself it never knew nor thought of. If it be not, then it is judged already. And what is this but saying that it is damned in the sight of God? But God damns none but the ungodly. Therefore it is ungodly. And what godliness can that which is ungodly endeavor after? For I do not think that the power of free will can be accepted, seeing that he speaks of the whole man as being condemned. Moreover, unbelief is not one of the grosser affections, but is that chief affection seated and ruling on the throne of the will and reason, just the same as its contrary, faith. For to be unbelieving is to deny God and to make him a liar. If we believe not, we make God a liar. 1 John 5.10 How then can that power which is contrary to God and which makes him a liar endeavor after that which is good? And if that power be not unbelieving and ungodly, John ought not to say of the whole man that he is condemned already, but to speak thus, man, according to his grosser affections, is condemned already. But according to that which is best and most excellent he is not condemned, because that endeavors after faith, or rather is already believing. Hence, where the Scripture so often saith, All men are liars, we must, upon the authority of free will, on the contrary say, the Scripture rather lies. Because man is not a liar as to his best part, that is, his reason and will, but as to his flesh only, that is, his blood and his grosser part. So that that whole, according to which he is called man, that is, his reason and his will, is sound and holy. Again, there is that of the Baptist. He that believeth on the sun hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the sun shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. John 3.36 We must understand upon him thus, that is, the wrath of God abideth upon the grosser affections of the man. But upon that power of free will, that is, upon his will and his reason, abide grace and everlasting life. Hence, according to this, in order that free will might stand, whatever is in the Scriptures said against the ungodly, you are by the figure synecdoche to twist round to apply to that brutal part of man that the truly rational and human part might remain safe. I have therefore to render thanks to the assertors of free will, because I may sin with all confidence, knowing that my reason and will, or my free will, cannot be damned, because it cannot be destroyed by my sinning, but forever remain sound, righteous, and holy. And thus, happy in my will and reason, I shall rejoice that my filthy and brutal flesh is distinctly separated from me and damned. So far shall I be from wishing Christ to become its Redeemer. You see here to what the doctrine of free will brings us. It denies all things, divine and human, temporal and eternal, and with all these enormities makes a laughing-stock of itself. Section 161 Again the Baptist saith, A man can receive nothing, except it were given him from above. John 3.27 Let not the diatribe here produce its forces where it enumerates all those things which we have from heaven. We are now disputing not about nature, but about grace. We are inquiring not what we are upon earth, but what we are in heaven before God. We know that man was constituted Lord over all things which are beneath himself, over which he has a right and a free will, that those things might do and obey, as he wills and thinks. But we are now inquiring whether he has a free will over God, that he should do and obey in those things which man wills. Or rather, whether God has not a free will over man, that he should will and do what God wills, and should be able to do nothing but what he wills and does. The Baptist here says that he can receive nothing, except it be given him from above. Wherefore free will must be a nothing at all. Again, He that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth. He that cometh from heaven is above all. John 3.31 Here again he makes all those earthly who are not of Christ, and says that they savour and speak of earthly things only. Nor does he leave any medium characters. But surely free will is not he that cometh from heaven. Wherefore it must of necessity be he that is of the earth, and that speaks of the earth, and savours of the earth. But if there were any power in man which at any time, in any place, or by any work, did not savour of the earth, the Baptist ought to have accepted this person, and not to have said in a general way concerning all those who are out of Christ, that they are of the earth, and speak of the earth. So also afterwards Christ saith, Ye are of the world, I am not of the world. Ye are from beneath, I am from above. John 8.23 And yet those to whom he spoke had free will, that is, reason and will. But still he says that they are of the world. But what news would he have told if he had merely said that they were of the world as to their grosser affections? Did not the whole world know this before? Moreover, what need was there for his saying that men were of the world as to that part in which they are brutal? For according to that, beasts are also of the world. Section 162 And now what do those words of Christ where he saith, No one can come unto me except my Father which hath sent me draw him. John 6.44 Leave to free will. For he says it is necessary that everyone should hear and learn of the Father himself, and that all must be taught of God. Here indeed he not only declares that the works and devoted efforts of free will are of no avail, but that even the word of the Gospel itself of which he is here speaking is heard in vain unless the Father himself speak within and teach and draw. No one can, no one can saith he, come, by which that power whereby men can endeavour something towards Christ, that is, towards those things which pertain unto salvation, is declared to be a nothing at all. Nor does that at all profit free will, which the diatribe brings forward out of Augustine by way of casting a slur upon this all-clear and all-powerful Scripture, that God draws us in the same way as we draw a sheep, by holding out to it a green bough. By this similitude he would prove that there is in us a power to follow the drawing of God. But this similitude avails nothing in the present passage. For God holds out not one of his good things only, but many, nay, even his Son Christ himself, and yet no man follows him unless the Father hold him forth otherwise within and draw otherwise. Nay, the whole world follows the Son whom he holds forth. But this similitude harmonizes sweetly with the experience of the godly, who are now made sheep, and know God their shepherd. These living in and being moved by the Spirit, follow wherever God wills, and whatever he holds out to them. But the ungodly man comes not unto him, even when he hears the word, unless the Father draw and teach within, which he does by shedding abroad his Spirit. And where that is done there is a different kind of drawing from that which is without. There Christ is held forth in the illumination of the Spirit, whereby the man is drawn unto Christ with the sweetest of all drawing, under which he is passive while God speaks, teaches, and draws, rather than seeks or runs of himself. Section 163 I will produce yet one more passage from John, where he saith, The Spirit shall reprove the world of sin, because they believe not in me. John 16, 9 You here see that it is sin not to believe in Christ. And this sin is seated not in the skin, nor in the hairs of the head, but in the very reason and will. Moreover, as Christ makes the whole world guilty from this sin, and as it is known by experience that the world is ignorant of this sin, as much so as it is ignorant of Christ, seeing that it must be revealed by the reproof of the Spirit, it is manifest that free will, together with its will and reason, is accounted a captive of this sin, and condemned before God. Wherefore, as long as it is ignorant of Christ, and believes not in him, it can will or attempt nothing good, but necessarily serves that sin of which it is ignorant. In a word, since the Scripture declares Christ everywhere by positive assertion and by antithesis, as I said before, in order that it might subject everything that is without the Spirit of Christ to Satan, to ungodliness, to error, to darkness, to sin, to death, and to the wrath of God, all the testimonies concerning Christ must make directly against free will. And they are innumerable, yea, the whole of the Scripture. If, therefore, our subject of discussion is to be decided by the judgment of the Scripture, the victory in every respect is mine. For there is not one jot or tittle of the Scripture remaining which does not condemn the doctrine of free will altogether. But if the great theologians and defenders of free will know not, or pretend not to know, that the Scripture everywhere declares Christ by positive assertion and by antithesis, yet all Christians know it, and in common confess it. They know, I say, that there are two kingdoms in the world mutually militating against each other, that Satan reigns in the one who on that account is by Christ called the prince of this world, John 12, 31, and by Paul, the god of this world, 2 Corinthians 4, 4, who according to the testimony of the same Paul, holds all captive according to his will, who are not rescued from him by the spirit of Christ, nor does he suffer any to be rescued by any other power but that of the spirit of God, as Christ testifies in the parable of the strong man armed, keeping his palace in peace. In the other kingdom Christ reigns, which kingdom continually resists and wars against that of Satan, into which we are translated not by any power of our own, but by the grace of God, whereby we are delivered from this present evil world and are snatched from the power of darkness. The knowledge and confession of these two kingdoms, which thus ever mutually war against each other with so much power and force, would alone be sufficient to confute the doctrine of free will, seeing that we are compelled to serve in the kingdom of Satan until we be liberated by a divine power. All this, I say, is known in common among Christians and fully confessed in their Proverbs, by their prayers, by their pursuits, and by their whole lives. Section 164 I omit to bring forward that truly Achillean scripture of mine, which the diatribe proudly passes by untouched. I mean that which Paul teaches, Romans 7 and Galatians 5, that there is in the saints and in the godly so powerful a warfare between the spirit and the flesh that they cannot do what they would. From this warfare I argue thus. If the nature of man be so evil, even in those who are born again of the spirit, that it does not only endeavor after good, but is even averse to it, and militates against good, how should it endeavor after good in those who are not born again of the spirit, and who are still in the old man, and serve under Satan? Nor does Paul there speak of the grosser affections only, by means of which, as a common scape-gap, the diatribe is accustomed to get out of the way of all the scriptures. But he enumerates among the works of the flesh heresy, idolatry, contentions, divisions, and so forth, which he describes as reigning in those most exalted faculties, that is, in the reason and the will. If therefore flesh with these affections war against the spirit in the saints, much more will it war against God in the ungodly, and in free will. Hence Romans 8, 7, he calls it, Amnesty against God. I should like, I say, to see this argument of mine overturned, and free will defended against it. As to myself, I openly confess that I should not wish free will to be granted me, even if it could be so, nor anything else to be left in my own hands whereby I might endeavor something toward my own salvation. And that, not merely because in so many opposing dangers and so many assaulting devils I could not stand and hold it fast, in which state no man could be saved, seeing that one devil is stronger than all men, but because, even though there were no dangers, no conflicts, no devils, I should be compelled to labor under a continual uncertainty, and to beat the air only. Nor would my conscience, even if I should live and work to all eternity, ever come to a settled certainty how much it ought to do in order to satisfy God. For whatever work should be done, there would still remain a scrupling, whether or not it pleased God, or whether He required anything more, as is proved in the experience of all justiciaries, and as I myself learned to my bitter cost through so many years of my own experience. But now, since God has put my salvation out of the way of my will, and has taken it under His own, and has promised to save me not according to my working or manner of life, but according to His own grace and mercy, I rest fully assured and persuaded that He is faithful, and will not lie, and, moreover, great and powerful, so that no devils, no adversities can destroy Him or pluck me out of His hand. No one, saith He, shall pluck them out of my hand, because my Father which gave them me is greater than all. John 10, 27-28 Hence it is certain that in this way, if all are not saved, yet some, yea, many shall be saved. Whereas by the power of free will, no one whatever could be saved, but all must perish together. And, moreover, we are certain and persuaded that in this way we please God, not from the merit of our own works, but from the favor of His mercy promised unto us, and that if we work less or work badly, He does not impute it unto us, but, as a Father, pardons us and makes us better. This is the glory in which all the saints have in their God. Section 165 And if you are concerned about this, that it is difficult to defend the mercy and justice of God, seeing that He damns the undeserving, that is, those who are for that reason ungodly, because being born in iniquity they cannot by any means prevent themselves from being ungodly, and from remaining so, and being damned, but are compelled from the necessity of nature to sin and perish, as Paul saith, We all were the children of wrath, even as others. Ephesians 2 3, when at the same time they were created such by God Himself from a corrupt seed by means of the sin of Adam. Here God is to be honored and revered as being most merciful towards those whom He justifies and saves under all their unworthiness, and it is to be in no small degree ascribed unto His wisdom, that He causes us to believe Him to be just, even where He appears to be unjust. For if His righteousness were such that it was considered to be righteousness according to human judgment, it would be no longer divine, nor would it in anything differ from human righteousness. But as He is the one and true God, and moreover incomprehensible and inaccessible by human reason, it is right, nay, it is necessary, that His righteousness should be incomprehensible, even as Paul exclaims, saying, O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out. Romans 11.33 But they would be no longer past finding out if we were in all things able to see how they were righteous. What is man compared with God? What can our power do when compared with His power? What is our strength compared with His strength? What is our knowledge compared with His wisdom? What is our substance compared with His substance? In a word, what is all that we are compared with all that He is? If then we confess, according to the teaching of nature, that human power, strength, wisdom, knowledge, substance, and all human things together are nothing when compared with the divine power, strength, wisdom, knowledge, and substance, what perverseness must it be in us to attack the righteousness and judgments of God only, and to arrogate so much to our own judgment as to wish to comprehend, judge, and rate the divine judgments? Why do we not here in like manner say at once, What, is our judgment nothing when compared with the divine judgments? But ask reason herself if she is not from conviction compelled to confess that she is foolish and rash for not allowing the judgments of God to be incomprehensible, when she confesses that all the other divine things are incomprehensible. In everything else we concede to God a divine majesty, and yet are ready to deny it to His judgments. Nor can we for a little while believe that He is just, even when He promises that it will come to pass that when He shall reveal His glory, we shall all see and palpably feel that He ever was and is just. But I will produce an example that may go to confirm this faith, and to console that evil eye which suspects God of injustice. Behold, God so governs this corporal world in external things that, according to human reason and judgment, you must be compelled to say either that there is no God, or that God is unjust. As a certain one saith, I am often tempted to think that there is no God. Forsee the great prosperity of the wicked, and on the contrary the great adversity of the good. According to the testimony of the Proverbs and of experience the parent of all Proverbs, the more abandoned men are the more successful. The tabernacles of robbers, saith Job, prosper. And Psalm 73 complains that the sinners of the world abound in riches. Is it not, I pray you, in the judgment of all most unjust, that the evil should be prosperous and the good afflicted? Yet so it is in the events of the world. And here it is that the most exalted minds have so fallen as to deny that there is any God at all, and to fable that fortune disposes all things at random. Such were Epicurus and Pliny. And Aristotle, in order that he might make his first cause being free from every kind of misery, is of opinion that he thinks of nothing whatever but himself, because he considers that it must be most irksome to him to see so many evils and so many injuries. But the prophets themselves, who believed there is a God, were tempted still more concerning the injustice of God, as Jeremiah, Job, David, Asaph, and others. And what do you suppose Demosthenes and Cicero thought, who, after they had done all they could, received no other reward than a miserable death? And yet all this, which is so very much like injustice in God, when set forth in those arguments which no reason or light of nature can resist, is most easily cleared up by the light of the gospel, and the knowledge of grace, by which we are taught that the wicked flourish in their bodies, but lose their souls. And the whole of this insolvable question is solved in one word. There is a life after this life, in which will be punished and repaid everything that is not punished and repaid here. For this life is nothing more than an entrance on and a beginning of that life which is to come. If, then, even the light of the gospel, which stands in the word and in the faith only, is able to affect so much as with ease to do away with and settle this question which has been agitated through so many ages and never solved, how do you suppose matters will appear when the light of the word and of faith shall cease, and the essential truth itself shall be revealed in the Divine Majesty? Do you not suppose that the light of glory will then most easily solve that question which is now insolvable by the light of the word and of grace, even as the light of grace now easily solves that question which is insolvable by the light of nature? Let us therefore hold in consideration the three lights, the light of nature, the light of grace, and the light of glory, which is the common and very good distinction. By the light of nature it is insolvable how it can be just that a good man should be afflicted and the wicked should prosper. But this is solved by the light of grace. By the light of grace it is insolvable how God can damn him who by his own powers can do nothing but sin and become guilty. Both the light of nature and the light of grace here say that the fault is not in the miserable man, but in the unjust God. Nor can they judge otherwise of that God who crowns the wicked man freely without any merit and yet crowns not but damns another, who is perhaps less or at least not more wicked. But the light of glory speaks otherwise. That will show that God to whom alone belongeth the judgment of incomprehensible righteousness is of righteousness most perfect and most manifest, in order that we may in the meantime believe it, being admonished and confirmed by that example of the light of grace, which solves that which is as great a miracle to the light of nature. Conclusion. Section 167. I shall here draw this book to a conclusion, prepared if it were necessary to pursue this discussion still farther, though I consider that I have now abundantly satisfied the godly man who wishes to believe the truth without making resistance. For if we believe it to be true that God foreknows and foreordains all things, that He can be neither deceived nor hindered in His prescience and predestination, and that nothing can take place but according to His will, which reason herself is compelled to confess, then, according to the testimony of reason herself, there can be no free will in man, in angel, or in any creature. Hence, if we believe that Satan is the prince of this world, ever ensnaring and fighting against the kingdom of Christ with all his powers, and that he does not let go his captives without being forced by the divine power of the Spirit, it is manifest that there can be no such thing as free will. Again, if we believe that original sin has so destroyed us that even in the godly who are led by the Spirit it causes the utmost molestation by striving against that which is good, it is manifest that there can be nothing left in a man devoid of the Spirit which can turn itself towards good, but which must turn itself towards evil. Again, if the Jews, who followed after righteousness with all their powers, ran rather into unrighteousness, while the Gentiles, who followed after unrighteousness, attained unto a free righteousness which they never hoped for, it is equally manifest from their very works and from experience that man without grace can do nothing but will evil. Finally, if we believe that Christ redeemed men by his blood, we are compelled to confess that the whole man was lost, otherwise we shall make Christ superfluous or a redeemer of the grossest part of man only, which is blasphemy and sacrilege. And now, my friend Erasmus, I entreat you, for Christ's sake, to perform what you promised. You promised that you would willingly yield to him who should teach you better than you knew. Lay aside all respective persons. You, I confess, are great and adorned with many and those the most noble gifts of God, to say nothing of the rest, with talent, with erudition, and with eloquence to a miracle, whereas I have nothing and am nothing excepting that I glory in being almost a Christian. In this, moreover, I give you great praise and proclaim it. You alone, in preeminent distinction from all others, have entered upon the thing itself, that is, the grand turning point of the cause, and have not wearied me with those irrelevant points about potpourri, purgatory, indulgences, and other like baubles, rather than causes with which all have hitherto tried to hunt me down, though in vain. You and you alone saw what was the grand hinge upon which the whole turned, and therefore you attacked the vital part at once, for which from my heart I thank you, for in this kind of discussion I willingly engage, as far as time and leisure permit me. Had those who have heretofore attacked me done the same, and would those still do the same who are now boasting of new spirits and new revelations, we should have less sedition and sectarianism, and more peace and concord. But thus has God, by the instrumentality of Satan, avenged our ingratitude. But, however, if you cannot manage this cause otherwise, then you have managed it in this diatribe. Do, I pray you, remain content with your own proper gift. Study, adorn, and promote literature and languages, as you have hitherto done, to great advantage, and with much credit. In which capacity you have rendered me also a certain service, so much so that I confess myself to be much indebted to you, and in that character I certainly venerate and honestly respect you. But as to this our cause, to this God has neither willed nor given it you to be equal, though I entreat you not to consider this as spoken in arrogance. No, I pray that the Lord may day by day make you as much superior to me in these matters as you are superior to me in all others. And it is no new thing for God to instruct a Moses by a Jethro, or to teach a Paul by an Ananias. And as to what you say, you have greatly missed the mark after all if you are ignorant of Christ. You yourself, if I mistake not, know what that is. But all will not therefore err because you or I may err. God is glorified in his saints in a wonderful way, so that we may consider those saints who are the farthest from sanctity. Nor is it an unlikely thing that you, as being man, should not rightly understand, nor with sufficient diligence weigh the Scriptures or the sayings of the fathers. Under which guides you imagine you cannot miss the mark. And that such is the case is quite manifest from this. You are saying that you do not assert but collect. No man would write thus who was fully acquainted with and well understood his subject. On the contrary, I in this book of mine have collected things, but have asserted, and still do assert. And I wish none to become judges, but all to yield assent. And may the Lord, whose cause this is, illuminate you, and make you a vessel to honour and to glory. Amen. Phineas 1525 End of section 168