Bondage of the Will

Sections 1 through 8 of The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther. Translated by Henry Cole. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Erasmus' Preface Reviewed. Section 1. First of all, I would just touch upon some of the heads of your preface, in which you somewhat disparage our cause and adorn your own. In the first place, I would notice your censuring in me, in all your former books, an obstinacy of assertion, and saying in this book that you are so far from delighting in assertions that you would rather at once go over to the sentiments of the skeptics if the inviolable authority of the holy scriptures and the decrees of the church would permit you, to which authorities you willingly submit yourself in all things, whether you follow what they prescribe or follow it not. These are the principles that please you. I consider, as in courtesy bound, that these things are asserted by you from a benevolent mind, as being a lover of peace. But if anyone else had asserted them, I should perhaps have attacked him in all my accustomed manner. But, however, I must not even allow you, though so very good in your intentions, to err in this opinion. For not to delight in assertions is not the character of the Christian mind. Nay, he must delight in assertions, or he is not a Christian. But, that we may not be mistaken in terms, by assertion I mean a constant adhering, affirming, confessing, defending, and invincibly persevering. Nor do I believe the term signifies anything else, either among the Latins, or as it is used by us at this day. And, moreover, I speak concerning the asserting of those things which are delivered to us from above, in the holy scriptures. Were it not so, we should want neither Erasmus, nor any other instructor, to teach us that in things doubtful, useless, or unnecessary, assertions, contentions, and strivings would be not only absurd, but impious. And Paul condemns such in more places than one. Nor do you, I believe, speak of these things, unless, as a ridiculous orator, you wish to take up one subject and go on with another, as the Roman emperor did with his turbot. Or, with the madness of a wicked writer, you wish to contend that the article concerning free will is doubtful, or not necessary. Be skeptics and academics far from us Christians, but be there with us asserters, twofold more determined than the Stoics themselves. How often does the Apostle Paul require that assurance of faith, that is, that most certain and most firm assertion of conscience, calling it, Romans 10.10, confession, with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. And Christ also saith, Whosoever confesseth me before men, him will I confess before my Father, Matthew 10.32. Peter commands us to give a reason of the hope that is in us, 1 Peter 3.15. But why should I dwell upon this? Nothing is more known and more general among Christians than assertions. Take away assertions, and you take away Christianity. Nay, the Holy Spirit is given unto them from heaven, that he may glorify Christ and confess him even unto death, unless this be not to assert, to die for confession and assertion. In a word, the Spirit so asserts that he comes upon the whole world and reproves them of sin, John 16.8, thus, as it were, provoking to battle. And Paul enjoins Timothy to reprove, and to be instant out of season, 2 Timothy 4.2. But how ludicrous to me would be that reprover, who should neither really believe that himself of which he reproved, nor constantly assert it. Why, I would send him to Anticyra to be cursed. But I am the greatest fool, who thus lose words and time upon that which is clearer than the sun. What Christian would bear that assertions could be contemned? This would be at once to deny all piety and religion together, or to assert that religion, piety, and every doctrine is nothing at all. Why, therefore, do you too say that you do not delight in assertions, and that you prefer such a mind to any other? But you would have it understood that you have said nothing here concerning confessing Christ and his doctrines. I receive the admonition, and, in courtesy to you, I give up my right and custom, and refrain from judging of your heart, reserving that for another time, or for others. In the meantime, I admonish you to correct your tongue and your pen, and to refrain henceforth from using such expressions. For how upright and honest soever your heart may be, your words, which are the index of the heart, are not so. For if you think the matter of free will is not necessary to be known, nor at all concerned with Christ, you speak honestly, but think wickedly. But if you think it is necessary, you speak wickedly, and think rightly. And if so, then there is no room for you to complain and exaggerate so much concerning useless assertions and contentions, for what have they to do with the nature of the cause? ERASMUS' SKEPTICISM. Section 2. But what will you say to these your declarations, when, be it remembered, they are not confined to free will only, but apply to all doctrines in general throughout the world, that, if it were permitted you by the inviolable authority of the sacred writings and decrees of the church, you would go over to the sentiments of the skeptics? What an all-changeable proteus is there in these expressions, inviolable authority, and decrees of the church, as though you could have so very great a reverence for the scriptures and the church, when at the same time you signify that you wish you had the liberty of being a skeptic? What Christian would talk in this way? But if you say this in reference to useless and doubtful doctrines, what news is there in what you say? Who in such things would not wish for the liberty of the skeptical profession? Nay, what Christian is there who does not actually use this liberty freely, and condemn all those who are drawn away with and captivated by every opinion? Unless you consider all Christians to be such, as the term is generally understood, whose doctrines are useless, and for which they quarrel like fools, and contend by assertions. But if you speak of necessary things, what declaration more impious can any one make, than that he wishes for the liberty of asserting nothing in such matters? Whereas the Christian will rather say this, I am so averse to the sentiments of the skeptics, that wherever I am not hindered by the infirmity of the flesh, I will not only steadily adhere to the sacred writings everywhere, and in all parts of them, and assert them, but I wish also to be as certain as possible in things that are not necessary, and that lie without the scriptures, for what is more miserable than uncertainty? What shall we say to these things also, where you add, To which authorities I submit my opinion in all things, whether I follow what they enjoin, or follow it not? What say you, Erasmus? Is it not enough that you submit your opinion to the scriptures? Do you submit it to the decrees of the church also? What can the church decree that is not decreed in the scriptures? If it can, where then remains the liberty and power of judging those who make the decrees? As Paul, 1 Corinthians 14, teaches, Let others judge. Are you not pleased that there should be any one to judge the decrees of the church, which nevertheless Paul enjoins? What new kind of religion and humility is this, that by our own example you would take away from us the power of judging the decrees of men, and give it unto men without judgment? Where does the scripture of God command us to do this? Moreover, what Christian would so commit the injunctions of the scripture and of the church to the winds, as to say, Whether I follow them or follow them not? You submit yourself, and yet care not at all whether you follow them or not. But let that Christian be anathema, who is not certain in, and does not follow, that which is enjoined him. For how will he believe that which he does not follow? Do you here, then, mean to say that following is understanding a thing certainly, and not doubting of it at all, in a skeptical manner? If you do, what is there in any creature which any one can follow, if following be understanding, and seeing, and knowing perfectly? And if this be the case, then it is impossible that any one should, at the same time, follow some things, and not follow others. Whereas by following one certain thing, God, he follows all things. That is, in him whom whoso followeth not, never followeth any part of his creature. In a word, these declarations of yours amount to this, that with you it matters not what is believed by any one, anywhere, if the peace of the world be but undisturbed, and if every one be but allowed, when his life, his reputation, or his interest is at stake, to do as he did who said, If they affirm, I affirm, if they deny, I deny, and to look upon the Christian doctrines as nothing better than the opinions of philosophers and men, and that it is the greatest of folly to quarrel about, contend for, and assert them, as nothing can arise therefrom but contention, and the disturbance of the public peace, that what is above us does not concern us, this, I say, is what your declarations amount to. Thus, to put an end to our fightings, you come in as an intermediate peacemaker, that you may cause each side to suspend arms, and persuade us to cease from drawing swords about things so absurd and useless. What I should cut at here, I believe, my friend Erasmus, you know very well, but, as I said before, I will not openly express myself. In the meantime, I excuse your very good intention of heart, but do you go no further. Fear the Spirit of God, who searcheth the reins and the heart, and who is not deceived by artfully contrived expressions. I have upon this occasion expressed myself thus, that henceforth you may cease to accuse our cause of pertinacity or obstinacy. For by so doing you only evince that you hug in your heart a Lucian, or some other of the swinish tribe of the Epicureans, who, because he does not believe there is a God himself, secretly laughs at all those who do believe and confess it. Allow us to be asserters, and to study and delight in assertions, and do you favour your sceptics and academics until Christ shall have called you also. The Holy Spirit is not a sceptic, nor are what he has written on our hearts doubts or opinions, but assertions more certain and more firm than life itself and all human experience. Section 3. Now I come to the next head which is connected with this, where you make a distinction between the Christian doctrines, and pretend that some are necessary and some not necessary. You say that some are abstruse and some quite clear. Thus you merely sport the sayings of others, or else exercise yourself as it were in a rhetorical figure, and you bring forward in support of this opinion that passage of Paul, Romans 11.33, O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and goodness of God, and also that of Isaiah 40.13, Who hath hopened the Spirit of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor? You could easily say these things, seeing that you either knew not that you were writing to Luther, but for the world at large, or did not think that you were writing against Luther, whom, however, I hope you allowed to have some acquaintance with and judgment in the sacred writings. But if you do not allow it, then behold, I will also twist things thus. This is the distinction which I make, that I also may act a little the rhetorician and logician. God and the Scriptures of God are two things, no less so than God and the creature of God, that there are in God many hidden things which we know not, no one doubts, as he himself saith concerning the last day, of that day knoweth no man but the Father, Matthew 24.36, and Acts 1.7, It is not yours to know the times and seasons. And again, I know whom I have chosen, John 13.18. And Paul, the Lord knoweth them that are his, 2 Timothy 2.19, and the like. But that there are in the Scriptures some things abstruse, and that all things are not quite plain, is a report spread abroad by the impious sophists by whose mouth you speak here, Erasmus. But they never have produced, nor ever can produce, one article whereby to prove this their madness. And it is with such scarecrows that Satan has frightened away men from reading the sacred writings, and has rendered the Holy Scripture contemptible, that he might cause his poisons of philosophy to prevail in the church. This, indeed, I confess, that there are many places in the Scriptures obscure and abstruse, not from the majesty of the thing, but from our ignorance of certain terms and grammatical particulars. But which do not prevent a knowledge of all things in the Scriptures. For what thing of more importance can remain hidden in the Scriptures, now that the seals are broken, the stone rolled from the door of the sepulchre, and that greatest of all mysteries brought to light, Christ made man? That God is Trinity and Unity? That Christ suffered for us, and will reign to all eternity? Are not these things known and proclaimed even in our streets? Take Christ out of the Scriptures, and what will you find remaining in them? All the things therefore contained in the Scriptures are made manifest, although some places from the words not being understood are yet obscure. But to know that all things in the Scriptures are set in the clearest light, and then, because a few words are obscure, to report that the things are obscure, is absurd and impious. And if the words are obscure in one place, yet they are clear in another. But, however, the same thing which has been most openly declared to the whole world is both spoken of in the Scriptures in plain words, and also still lies hidden in obscure words. Now, therefore, it matters not if the thing be in the light, whether any certain representations of it be in obscurity or not, if, in the meanwhile, many other representations of the same thing be in the light. For who would say that the public fountain is not in the light, because those who are in some dark narrow lane do not see it, when all those who are in the open marketplace can see it plainly? Section 4. What you adduce, therefore, about the darkness of the Corician cavern amounts to nothing. Matters are not so in the Scriptures. For those things which are of the greatest majesty and the most abstruse mysteries are no longer in the dark corner, but before the very doors may brought forth and manifested openly. For Christ has opened our understanding to understand the Scriptures. Luke 24, 45. And the gospel is preached to every creature. Mark 16, 15. Colossians 1, 23. Their sound is gone out into all the world. Psalm 19, 4. And all things that are written are written for our instruction. Romans 15, 4. And again, all Scripture is inspired from above and is profitable for instruction. 2 Timothy 3, 16. Therefore come forward, you and all the sophists together, and produce any one mystery which is still abstruse in the Scriptures. But if many things still remain abstruse to many, this does not arise from obscurity in the Scriptures, but from their own blindness or want of understanding, who do not go the way to see the all-perfect clearness of the truth. As Paul saith concerning the Jews. 2 Corinthians 3, 15. The veil still remains upon their heart. And again, if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, whose heart the God of this world hath blinded. 2 Corinthians 4, 3-4. With the same rashness, any one may cover his own eyes, or go from the light into the dark and hide himself, and then blame the day and the sun for being obscure. Let, therefore, wretched men cease to impute with blasphemous perverseness the darkness and obscurity of their own heart to the all-clear Scriptures of God. You, therefore, when you adduce Paul, saying, His judgments are incomprehensible, seem to make the pronoun his, eius, refer to Scripture, Scriptura, whereas Paul does not say, The judgments of the Scripture are incomprehensible, but the judgments of God. So also Isaiah 40, 13 does not say, Who has known the mind of the Scripture? but, Who has known the mind of the Lord? although Paul asserts that the mind of the Lord is known to Christians. But it is in those things which are freely given unto us, as he saith also in the same place, 1 Corinthians 2, 10, and 16. You see, therefore, how sleepily you have looked over these places of the Scripture, and you cite them just as aptly as you cite nearly all the passages in defense of free will. In like manner your examples which you subjoin, not without suspicion and bitterness, are nothing at all to the purpose. Such are those concerning the distinction of persons, the union of the divine and human natures, the unpardonable sin, the ambiguity attached to which you say has never been cleared up. If you mean the questions of sophists that have been agitated upon those subjects, well. But what has the all-innocent Scripture done to you, that you impute the abuse of the most wicked of men to its purity? The Scripture simply confesses the Trinity of God, the humanity of Christ, and the unpardonable sin. There is nothing here of obscurity or ambiguity. But how these things are, the Scripture does not say, nor is it necessary to be known. The sophists employ their dreams here. Attack and condemn them, and acquit the Scripture. But if you mean the reality of the matter, I say again, attack not the Scriptures, but the Arians, and those to whom the Gospel is hid, that through the working of Satan they might not see the all-manifest testimonies concerning the Trinity of the Godhead and the humanity of Christ. But to be brief, the clearness of the Scripture is twofold, even as the obscurity is twofold also. The one is external, placed in the ministry of the Word, the other internal, placed in the understanding of the heart. If you speak of the internal clearness, no man sees one iota in the Scriptures, but he that hath the Spirit of God. All have a darkened heart, so that even if they know how to speak of and set forth all things in the Scripture, yet they cannot feel them, nor know them, nor do they believe that they are the creatures of God, nor anything else. According to that of Psalm 14.1, the fool hath said in his heart, God is nothing. For the Spirit is required to understand the whole of the Scripture and every part of it. If you speak of the external clearness, nothing whatever is left obscure or ambiguous, but all things that are in the Scriptures are by the Word brought forth into the clearest light and proclaimed to the whole world. But this is still more intolerable, your enumerating this subject of free will among those things that are useless and not necessary, and drawing up for us instead of it a form of those things which you consider necessary unto Christian piety, such a form as certainly any Jew or any Gentile utterly ignorant of Christ might draw up. For of Christ you make no mention in one iota, as though you thought that there may be Christian piety without Christ, if God be but worshipped with all the powers as being by nature most merciful. What shall I say here, Erasmus? To me you breathe out nothing but Lucian, and draw in the gorging surfeit of Epicurus. If you consider this subject not necessary to Christians, away, I pray you, out of the field. I have nothing to do with you. I consider it necessary. If, as you say, it be irreligious, if it be curious, if it be superfluous, to know whether or not God foreknows anything by contingency, whether our own will does anything in those things which pertain unto eternal salvation, or is only passive under the work of grace, whether or not we do what we do of good or evil from necessity, or rather from being passive, what then, I ask, is religious? What is grave? What is useful to be known? All this, Erasmus, is to no purpose whatever. And it is difficult to attribute this to your ignorance, because you are now old, have been conversant with Christians, and have long studied the sacred writings. Therefore you leave no room for my excusing you, or having a good thought concerning you. And yet the Papists pardon and put up with these enormities in you, and on this account, because you are writing against Luther. Otherwise, if Luther were not in the case, they would tear you to pieces tooth and nail. Plato is a friend, Socrates is a friend, but truth is to be honored above all. For, granting that you have but little understanding in the Scriptures and in Christian piety, surely even an enemy to Christians ought to know what Christians consider useful and necessary, and what they do not. Whereas you, a theologian, a teacher of Christians, and about to draw up for them a form of Christianity, not only in your skeptical manner doubt of what is necessary and useful to them, but go away into the directly opposite, and, contrary to your own principles, by an unheard of assertion declare it to be your judgment that those things are not necessary. Whereas, if they be not necessary, and certainly known, there can remain neither God, nor Christ, nor gospel, nor faith, nor anything else, even of Judaism, much less of Christianity. In the name of the immortal God, Erasmus, what an occasion, yea, what a field do you open for acting and speaking against you! What could you write well or correctly concerning free will, who confess by these your declarations so great an ignorance of the Scripture and of godliness? But I draw in my sails, nor will I here deal with you in my words, for that perhaps I shall do hereafter, but in your own. Section 6. The form of Christianity set forth by you, among other things, has this, that we should strive with all our powers, have recourse to the remedy of repentance, and in all ways try to gain the mercy of God, without which neither human will nor endeavor is effectual. Also, that no one should despair of pardon from a God by nature most merciful. These statements of yours are without Christ, without the Spirit, and more cold than ice, so that the beauty of your eloquence is really deformed by them. Perhaps the fear of the popes and those tyrants extorted them from their miserable vassal, lest you should appear to them a perfect atheist. But what they assert is this, that there is ability in us, that there is a striving with all our powers, that there is mercy in God, that there are ways of gaining that mercy, that there is a God by nature just and most merciful, and so forth. But if a man does not know what these powers are, what they can do, or in what they are to be passive, what their efficacy or what their inefficacy is, what can such an one do? What will you set him about doing? It is irreligious, curious, and superfluous, you say, to wish to know whether our own will does anything in those things which pertain unto eternal salvation, or whether it is wholly passive under the work of grace. But here you say the contrary, that it is Christian piety to strive with all the powers, and that without the mercy of God the will is ineffective. Here you plainly assert that the will does something in those things which pertain unto eternal salvation, when you speak of it as striving, and again you assert that it is passive when you say that without the mercy of God it is ineffective, though at the same time you do not define how far that doing and being passive is to be understood, thus designedly keeping us in ignorance how far the mercy of God extends, and how far our own will extends. What our own will is to do in that which you enjoin, and what the mercy of God is to do? Thus that prudence of yours carries you along, by which you are resolved to hold with neither side, and to escape safely through the Scylla and Charybdis, in order that when you come into the open sea and find yourself overwhelmed and confounded by the waves, you may have it in your power to assert all that you now deny, and deny all that you now assert. The Necessity of Knowing God and His Power. Section 7. But I will set your theology before your eyes by a few similitudes. What if anyone intending to compose a poem or an oration should never think about nor inquire into his abilities, what he could do and what he could not do, nor what the subject undertaken required, and should utterly disregard that precept of Horus, what the shoulders can sustain and what they must sink under, but should precipitously dash upon the undertaking and think thus, I must strive to get the work done, to inquire whether the learning I have, the eloquence I have, the force of genius I have be equal to it, is curious and superfluous? Or if anyone desiring to have a plentiful crop from his land should not be so curious as to take the superfluous care of examining the nature of the soil, as Virgil curiously and in vain teaches in his Georgics, but should rush on at once, thinking of nothing but the work, and plow the seashore, and cast in the seed wherever the soil was turned up, whether sand or mud? Or if anyone about to make war, and desiring a glorious victory, or intending to render any other service to the state, should not be so curious as to deliberate upon what it was in his power to do, whether the treasury could furnish money, whether the soldiers were fit, whether any opportunity offered, and should pay no regard whatever to that of the historian, before you act there must be deliberation, and when you have deliberated, speedy execution. But should rush forward with his eyes blinded and his ears stopped, only exclaiming, War! War! and should be determined on the undertaking. What, I ask you, Erasmus, would you think of such poets, such husbandmen, such generals, and such heads of affairs? I will add also that of the gospel. If anyone going to build a tower sits not down first and counts the cost, whether he has enough to finish it, what does Christ say of such an one? Luke 14, 28-32. Thus you also enjoin us works only, but you forbid us to examine, weigh, and know first our ability, what we can do and what we cannot do, as being curious, superfluous, and irreligious. Thus, while with your overcautious prudence you pretend to detest temerity, and make a show of sobriety, you go so far that you even teach the greatest of all temerity. For, although the sophists are rash and mad in reality while they pursue their curious inquiries, yet their sin is less enormous than yours. For you even teach and enjoin men to be mad, and to rush on with temerity. And to make your madness still greater, you persuade us that this temerity is the most exalted in Christian piety, sobriety, religious gravity, and even salvation. And you assert that if we exercise it not we are irreligious, curious, and vain, although you are so great an enemy to assertions. Thus, in steering clear of Charybdis, you have with excellent grace escaped Scylla also. But into this state you are driven by your confidence in your own talents. You believe that you can by your eloquence so impose upon the understandings of all that no one shall discover the design which you secretly hug in your heart, and what you aim at in all those your pliant writings. But God is not mocked, Galatians 6, 7, upon whom it is not safe to run. Moreover, had you enjoined us this temerity in composing poems, in preparing for fruits, in conducting wars or other undertakings, or in building houses, although it would have been intolerable, especially in so great a man, yet you might have been deserving of some pardon, at least from Christians, for they pay no regard to these temporal things. But when you enjoin Christians themselves to become rash workers, and charge them not to be curious about what they can do and what they cannot do in obtaining eternal salvation, this evidently and in reality is the sin unpardonable. For while they know not what or how much they can do, they will not know what to do. And if they know not what to do, they cannot repent when they do wrong. And impenitence is the unpardonable sin. And to this does that moderate and skeptical theology of yours lead us. Therefore it is not irreligious, curious, or superfluous, but essentially wholesome and necessary for a Christian to know whether or not the will does anything in those things which pertain unto salvation. Nay, let me tell you, this is the very hinge upon which our discussion turns. It is the very heart of our subject. For our object is this, to inquire what free will can do, in what it is passive, and how it stands with reference to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatever of Christian matters, and shall be far behind all people upon earth. He that does not feel this, let him confess that he is no Christian. And he that despises and laughs at it, let him know that he is the Christian's greatest enemy. For if I know not how much I can do myself, how far my ability extends, and what I can do Godwards, I shall be equally uncertain and ignorant how much God is to do, how far his ability is to extend, and what he is to do towards me. Whereas it is God that worketh all in all. 1 Corinthians 12 6. But if I know not the distinction between our working and the power of God, I know not God himself. And if I know not God, I cannot worship him, praise him, give him thanks, nor serve him. For I shall not know how much I ought to ascribe unto myself, and how much unto God. It is necessary, therefore, to hold the most certain distinction between the power of God and our power, the working of God and our working, if we would live in his sphere. Hence, you see, this point forms another part of the whole sum of Christianity, on which depends and in which is at stake the knowledge of ourselves and the knowledge and glory of God. Wherefore, friend Erasmus, your calling the knowledge of this point irreligious, curious, and vain, is not to be born in you. We owe much to you, but we owe all to the fear of God. Nay, you yourself see that all our good is to be ascribed unto God, and you assert that in your form of Christianity. And in asserting this, you certainly at the same time assert also that the mercy of God alone does all things, and that our own will does nothing, but is rather acted upon. And so it must be, otherwise the whole is not ascribed unto God. And yet, immediately afterwards you say that to assert these things and to know them is irreligious, impious, and vain. But at this rate, a mind which is unstable in itself, and unsettled and inexperienced in the things of godliness, cannot but talk. Section 8. Another part of the sum of Christianity is to know whether God foreknows anything by contingency, or whether we do all things from necessity. This part also you make to be irreligious, curious, and vain, as all the wicked do. The devils and the detestable and execrable. And you show your wisdom in keeping yourself clear from such questions wherever you can do it. But, however, you are but a very poor rhetorician and theologian, if you pretend to speak of free will without these essential parts of it. I will therefore act as a whetstone, and though no rhetorician myself will tell a famed rhetorician what he ought to do. If, then, Quintilian, purposing to write on oratory, should say, in my judgment, all that superfluous nonsense about invention, arrangement, elocution, memory, pronunciation, need not be mentioned. It is enough to know that oratory is the art of speaking well. Would you not laugh at such a writer? But you act exactly like this. For, pretending to write on free will, you first throw aside and cast away the grand substance and all the parts of the subject on which you undertake to write. Whereas it is impossible that you should know what free will is, unless you know what the human will does and what God does or foreknows. Do not your rhetoricians teach that he who undertakes to speak upon any subject ought first to show whether the thing exists, and then what it is, what its parts are, what is contrary to it, connected with it, and like unto it, and so forth? But you rob that miserable subject in itself, free will, of all these things, and define no one question concerning it except this first, namely, whether it exists, and even this with such arguments as we shall presently see. And so worthless a book on free will I never saw, excepting the eloquence of the language. The sophists in reality, at least, argue upon this point better than you, though those of them who have attempted the subject of free will are no rhetoricians, for they define all the questions connected with it, whether it exists, what it does, and how it stands with reference to, and so forth, although they do not affect what they attempt. In this book, therefore, I will push you and the sophists together until you shall define to me the power of free will, and what it can do, and I hope I shall so push you, Christ willing, as to make you heartedly repent that you ever published your diatribe.