Bondage of the Will

Sections 111 through 125 of The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther, translated by Henry Cole. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Discussion, second part, continued. Section 111. The diatribe at length comes to the passages cited by Luther against free will with the intent to refute them. The first passage is that of Genesis 6.3. My spirit shall not always remain in man, seeing that he is flesh. This passage, it confutes variously. First, it says that flesh here does not signify vile affection, but infirmity. Then it augments the text of Moses, that this saying of his refers to the men of that age and not to the whole race of men, as if he said, in these men. And, moreover, that it does not refer to all the men, even of that age, because Noah was accepted. And, at last, it says that this word has in the Hebrew another signification, that it signifies the mercy and not the severity of God, according to the authority of Jerome. By this it would perhaps persuade us that since that saying did not apply to Noah but to the wicked, it was not the mercy but the severity of God that was shown to Noah, and the mercy not the severity of God that was shown to the wicked. But let us away with these ridiculing vanities of the diatribe, for there is nothing which it advances which does not evince that it looks upon the Scriptures as mere fables. What Jerome here triflingly talks about is nothing at all to me, for it is certain that he cannot prove anything that he says. Nor is our dispute concerning the sense of Jerome but concerning the sense of the Scripture. Let that perverter of the Scriptures attempt to make it appear that the Spirit of God signifies indignation. I say that he is deficient in both parts of the necessary twofold proof. First, he cannot produce one passage of the Scripture in which the Spirit of God is understood as signifying indignation. For, on the contrary, kindness and sweetness are everywhere ascribed to the Spirit. And next, if he should prove that it is understood in any place as signifying indignation, yet he cannot easily prove that it follows of necessity that it is so to be received in this place. So also let him attempt to make it appear that flesh is here to be understood as signifying infirmity. Yet he is as deficient as ever in proof, for where Paul calls the Corinthians carnal, he does not signify infirmity but corrupt affection, because he charges them with strife and divisions, which is not infirmity or incapacity to receive stronger doctrine, but malice and that old leaven which he commands them to purge out, 1 Corinthians 3, 3 and 7. But let us examine the Hebrew. Section 112 My spirit shall not always judge in man, for he is flesh. These are verbatim the words of Moses. And if we would away with our own dreams, the words as they there stand are, I think, sufficiently plain and clear, and that they are the words of an angry God as fully manifest, both from what precedes and from what follows, together with the effect, the flood. The cause of their being spoken was the sons of men taking unto them wives from the mere lust of the flesh, and then so filling the earth with violence as to cause God to hasten the flood, and scarcely to delay that for an hundred and twenty years, Genesis 6, 1 through 3, which but for them he would never have brought upon the earth at all. Read and study Moses, and you will plainly see that this is his meaning. But it is no wonder that the Scriptures should be obscure, or that you should be enabled to establish from them not only a free, but a divine will, where you are allowed so to trifle with them as to seek to make out of them a Virgilian patchwork. And this is what you call clearing up difficulties, and putting an end to all dispute by means of an interpretation. But it is with these trifling vanities that Jerome and Origen have filled the world, and have been the original cause of that pestilent practice, the not attending to the simplicity of the Scriptures. It is enough for me to prove that in this passage the divine authority calls men flesh, and flesh in that sense that the Spirit of God could not continue among them, but was at a decreed time to be taken from them. And what God meant when he declared that his Spirit should not always judge among men is explained immediately afterwards, where he determines an hundred and twenty years as the time that he would still continue to judge. Here he contrasts spirit with flesh, showing that men being flesh receive not the Spirit, and he as being a spirit cannot approve of flesh. Wherefore it is that the Spirit, after an hundred and twenty years, is to be withdrawn. Hence you may understand the passage of Moses thus, My Spirit, which is in Noah and in the other holy men, rebukes those impious ones by the word of their preaching and by their holy lives. For to judge among men is to act among them in the office of the word, to reprove, to rebuke, to beseech them opportunely and importunely, but in vain. For they, being blinded and hardened by the flesh, only become the worse the more they are judged. And so it ever is, that wherever the word of God comes forth in the world, these men become the worse the more they hear of it. And this is the reason why wrath is hastened, even as the flood was hastened at that time, because they now not only sin, but even despise grace. As Christ saith, Light is come into the world, and men hate the light. John 3.19 Since, therefore, men, according to the testimony of God himself, are flesh, they can savour of nothing but flesh, so far is it from possibility that free will should do anything but sin. And if, even while the Spirit of God is among them calling and teaching, they only become worse, what will they do when left to themselves without the Spirit of God? Section 113 Nor is it at all to the purpose, you are saying, that Moses is speaking with reference to the men of that age. For the same applies unto all men, because all are flesh. As Christ saith, That which is born of the flesh is flesh. John 3.6 And how deep a corruption that is, he himself shows in the same chapter, where he saith, Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Let, therefore, the Christian know, that Origen and Jerome, together with all their train, perniciously err when they say that flesh ought not in these passages to be understood as meaning corrupt affection. Because that of 1 Corinthians 3.3, For ye are yet carnal, signifies ungodliness. For Paul means that there are some among them still ungodly, and moreover, that even the saints, in as far as they savour of carnal things, are carnal, though justified by the Spirit. In a word, you may take this as a general observation upon the Scriptures. Wherever mention is made of flesh in contradistinction to spirit, you may thereby flesh understand everything that is contrary to spirit, as in this passage, The flesh profiteth nothing. John 6.63 But where it is used abstractly, there you may understand the corporal state and nature, as They twain shall be one flesh. Matthew 19.5 My flesh is meat indeed. John 6.55 The word was made flesh. John 1.14 In such passages, you may make a figurative alteration in the Hebrew, and for flesh, say, body. For in the Hebrew tongue, the one term flesh embraces in signification our two terms, flesh and body. And I could wish that these two terms had been distinctively used throughout the canon of the Scripture. Thus then, I presume, my passage, Genesis 6, still stands directly against free will, since flesh is proved to be that which Paul declares, Romans 8.5-8, cannot be subject to God as we may there see, and since the diatribe itself asserts that it cannot will anything good. Section 114 Another passage is that of Genesis 8.21 The thought and imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. And that also, Genesis 6.5 Every imagination of man's heart is only evil continually. These passages it evades thus. The proneness to evil which is in most men does not wholly take away the freedom of the will. Does God, I pray you, here speak of most men, and not rather all men, when, after the flood, as it were, repenting, He promises to those who were then remaining and to those who were to come that He would no more bring a flood upon the earth for man's sake, assigning this as the reason, because man is prone to evil. As though He had said, If I should act according to the wickedness of man, I should never cease from bringing a flood. Wherefore, henceforth, I will not act according to that which he deserves, and so forth. You see, therefore, that God, both before and after the flood, declares that man is evil, so that what the diatribe says about most men amounts to nothing at all. Moreover, a proneness or inclination to evil appears to the diatribe to be a matter of little moment, as though it were in our own power to keep ourselves upright or to restrain it, whereas the Scripture, by that proneness, signifies the continual bent and impetus of the will to evil. Why does not the diatribe here appeal to the Hebrew? Moses says nothing there about proneness, but that you may have no room for cavillation, the Hebrew, Genesis 6.5, runs thus, That is, every imagination of the thought of the heart is only evil all days. He does not say that he is intent or prone to evil, but that evil altogether, and nothing but evil, is thought or imagined by man throughout his whole life. The nature of his evil is described to be that which neither does nor can do anything but evil, as being evil itself. For according to the testimony of Christ, an evil tree can bring forth none other than evil fruit, Matthew 7.17-18. And as to the diatribes pertly objecting, why was time given for repentance then, if no part of repentance depend on free will, and all things be conducted according to the law of necessity? I answer, you may make the same objection to all the precepts of God, and say, why does he command at all, if all things take place of necessity? He commands in order to instruct and admonish that men being humbled under the knowledge of their evil might come to grace, as I have fully shown already. This passage therefore still remains invincible against the freedom of the will. Section 115. The third passage is that of Isaiah 42. She hath received at the Lord's hand double for all her sins. Jerome, says the diatribe, interprets this concerning the divine vengeance, not concerning his grace, given in return for evil deeds. I hear you. Jerome says so, therefore it is true. I am disputing about Isaiah, who here speaks in the clearest words, and Jerome is cast in my teeth, a man, to say no worse of him, of neither judgment nor application. Where now is that promise of ours by which we agreed at the outset that we would go according to the Scriptures, and not according to the commentaries of men? The whole of this chapter of Isaiah, according to the testimony of the evangelists where they mention it, is referring to John the Baptist. The voice of one crying speaks of the remission of sins proclaimed by the Gospel. But we will allow Jerome, after his manner, to thrust in the blindness of the Jews for an historical sense, and his own trifling vanities for an allegory. And, turning all grammar upside down, we will understand this passage as speaking of vengeance, which speaks of the remission of sins. But, I pray you, what vengeance is fulfilled in the preaching of Christ? Let us, however, see how the words run in the Hebrew. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, in the vocative, or, my people, in the objective, saith your God. He, I presume, who commands the comfort is not executing vengeance. It then follows, Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem and cry unto her. Isaiah 40, 1-2 Speak ye to the heart is a Hebraism and signifies to speak good things, sweet things, and alluring things. Thus Shechem, Genesis 34, 3, speaks to the heart of Dinah whom he defiled. That is, when she was heavy-hearted, he comforted her with tender words, as our translator has rendered it. And what those good and sweet things are which are commanded to be proclaimed to their comfort? The prophet explains directly afterwards, saying, That her warfare is accomplished, her iniquity is pardoned, for she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. Her warfare, Melitia, which our translators have rendered her evil, Melitia, is considered by the Jews, those audacious grammarians, to signify an appointed time. For thus they understand that passage, Job 7, 1, Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? That is, his time is determinately appointed. But I receive it simply and according to the grammatical propriety as signifying warfare. Wherefore you may understand Isaiah as speaking with reference to the race and labor of the people under the law who are, as it were, fighting on a platform. Hence Paul compares both the preachers and the hearers of the word to soldiers, as in the case of Timothy, 2 Timothy 2, 3, whom he commands to be a good soldier and to fight the good fight. And 1 Corinthians 9, 24, he represents them as running in a race and observes also that no one is crowned except he strive lawfully. He equips the Ephesians and Thessalonians with arms, Ephesians 6, 10-18, and he glories himself that he had fought the good fight, 2 Timothy 4, 7, with many like instances in other places. So also at 1 Samuel 2, 22, it is in the Hebrew, And the sons of Eli slept with the women who fought, militantibus, at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, of whose fighting Moses makes mention in Exodus. And hence it is that the god of the people is called the Lord of Sabaoth, that is, the Lord of warfare and of armies. Isaiah, therefore, is proclaiming that the warfare of the people under the law, who are pressed down under the law as a burden intolerable, as Peter saith, Acts 15, 7-10, is to be at an end, and that they being freed from the law are to be translated into the new warfare of the Spirit. Moreover, this end of their most hard warfare and this translation to the new and all-free warfare is not given unto them on account of their merit, seeing that they could not endure it. Nay, it is rather given unto them on account of their demerit, for their warfare is ended by their iniquities being freely forgiven them. The words are not obscure or ambiguous here. He saith that their warfare was ended by their iniquities being forgiven them, manifestly signifying that the soldiers under the law did not fulfill the law and could not fulfill it, and that they only carried on a warfare of sin and were soldier-sinners, as though God had said, I am compelled to forgive them their sins if I would have my law fulfilled by them. Nay, I must take away my law entirely when I forgive them, for I see they cannot but sin. And the more so, the more they fight, that is, the more they strive to fulfill the law by their own vowers. For in the Hebrew, her iniquity is pardoned, signifies its being done in gratuitous goodwill. And it is thus that the iniquity is pardoned without any merit, nay, under all demerit, as is shown in what follows, for she hath received at the Lord's hand double for all her sins, that is, as I said before, not only the remission of sins, but an end of the warfare, which is nothing more or less than this, the law being taken out of the way, which is the strength of sin, and their sin being pardoned, which is the sting of death. They reign in a twofold liberty by the victory of Jesus Christ, which is what Isaiah means when he says, From the hand of the Lord. For they do not obtain it by their own powers or on account of their own merit, but they receive it from the Conqueror and Giver, Jesus Christ. And that which is, according to the Hebrew, in all her sins, is, according to the Latin, for all her sins, or on account of all her sins. As in Hosea 12.12, Israel served in a wife, that is, for a wife. And so also in Psalm 59.3, They lay in wait in my soul, that is, for my soul. Isaiah, therefore, is here pointing out to us those merits of ours by which we imagine we are to obtain the twofold liberty, that of the end of the law warfare and that of the pardon of sin, making it appear to us that they were nothing but sins, nay, all sins. Could I therefore suffer this most beautiful passage which stands invincible against free will, to be thus bedaubed with Jewish filth cast upon it by Jerome and the diatribe? God forbid, no. My Isaiah stands victor over free will and clearly shows that grace is given not to merits or to the endeavors of free will, but to sins and demerits, and that free will with all its powers can do nothing but carry on a warfare of sin, so that the very law which it imagines to be given as a help becomes intolerable to it and makes it the greater sinner the longer it is under its warfare. Section 116 But as to the diatribe disputing thus, Although sin abound by the law, and where sin has abounded grace much more abound, yet it does not therefore follow that man, doing by God's help what is pleasing to him, cannot by works morally good prepare himself for the favor of God. Wonderful! Surely the diatribe does not speak this out of its own head, but has taken it out of some paper or other, sent or received from another quarter, and inserted it into its book. For it certainly can neither see nor hear the meaning of these words. If sin abound by the law, how is it possible that a man can prepare himself by moral works for the favor of God? How can works avail anything when the law avails nothing? Or what else is it for sin to abound by the law but for all the works done according to the law to become sins? But of this elsewhere. But what does it mean when it says that man, assisted by the help of God, can prepare himself by moral works? Are we here disputing concerning the divine assistance or concerning free will? For what is not possible through the divine assistance? But the fact is, as I said before, the diatribe cares nothing for the cause it has taken up, and therefore it snores and yawns forth such words as these. But, however, it adduces Cornelius the Centurion, Acts 10.31, as an example, observing that his prayers and alms pleased God before he was baptized and before he was inspired by the Holy Spirit. I have read Luke upon the Acts too, and yet I never perceived from one single syllable that the works of Cornelius were morally good without the Holy Spirit as the diatribe dreams. But on the contrary, I find that he was a just man, one who feared God, for thus Luke calls him. But to call a man without the Holy Spirit a just man and one that feared God is the same thing as calling Baal Christ. Moreover, the whole context shows that Cornelius was clean before God, even upon the testimony of the vision which was sent down from heaven to Peter and which reproved him. Are then the righteousness and faith of Cornelius set forth by Luke in such words and do the diatribe and its sophists remain blind with open eyes or see the contrary in a light of words and in evidence of circumstances so clear? Such is their want of diligence in reading and contemplating the Scriptures, and yet they must brand them with the assertion that they are obscure and ambiguous. But granted that he was not as yet baptized nor had as yet heard the word concerning Christ risen from the dead, does it therefore follow that he was without the Holy Spirit? According to this you will say that John the Baptist and his parents, the mother of Christ and Simeon, were without the Holy Spirit. But let us take leave of such thick darkness. Section 117 The fourth passage is that of Isaiah in the same chapter. All flesh is grass, and all the glory of it as the flower of grass. The grass is withered, the flower of grass is fallen, because the Spirit of the Lord hath blown upon it. Isaiah 46-7 This Scripture appears to my friend Diatribe to be treated with violence by being dragged in as applicable to the causes of grace and free will. Why so, I pray? Because, it says, Jerome understands spirit to signify indignation and flesh to signify the infirm condition of man which cannot stand against God. Here again the trifling vanities of Jerome are cast in my teeth instead of Isaiah. And I find I have more to do in fighting against that wearisomeness with which the diatribe with so much diligence to use no harsher term wears me out than I have in fighting against the diatribe itself. But I have given my opinion upon the sentiment of Jerome already. Let me beg permission of the diatribe to compare this gentleman with himself. He says that flesh signifies the infirm condition of man and spirit the divine indignation. Has then the divine indignation nothing else to wither but that miserable infirm condition of man which it ought rather to raise up? This, however, is more excellent still. The flower of grass is the glory which arises from the prosperity of corporal things. The Jews gloried in their temple, their circumcision, and their sacrifices, and the Greeks in their wisdom. Therefore the flower of grass is the glory of the flesh, the righteousness of works, and the wisdom of the world. How then are righteousness and wisdom called by the diatribe corporal things? And after all, what have these to do with Isaiah who interprets his own meaning in his own words, saying, Surely the people is grass. He does not say, Surely the infirm condition of man is grass, but the people, and affirms it with an asseveration. And what is the people? Is it the infirm condition of man only? But whether Jerome by the infirm condition of man means the whole creation together, or the miserable lot and state of man only, I am sure I know not. Be it however which it may, he certainly makes the divine indignation to gain a glorious renown and a noble spoil from withering a miserable creation, or a race of wretched men, and not rather from scattering the proud, pulling down the mighty from their seat, and sending the rich empty away, as Mary sings, Luke 1, 51-53. Section 118 But let us dispatch these hobgoblins of glosses, and take Isaiah's words as they are. The people, he saith, is grass. People does not signify flesh merely, or the infirm condition of human nature, but it comprehends everything that there is in people, the rich, the wise, the just, the saints, unless you mean to say that the Pharisees, the elders, the princes, the nobles, and the rich men were not of the people of the Jews. The flower of grass is rightly called their glory, because it was in their kingdom, their government, and above all in the law, in God, in righteousness, and in wisdom, that they gloried, as Paul shows, Romans 2, 3, and 9. When, therefore, Isaiah saith, All flesh, what else does he mean but all grass, or all people? For he does not say flesh only, but all flesh, and to people belong soul, body, mind, reason, judgment, and whatever is called or found to be most excellent in man. For when he says, All flesh is grass, he accepts nothing but the spirit which withereth it. Nor does he omit anything when he says, The people is grass. Speak, therefore, of free will, speak of anything that can be called the highest or the lowest in the people. Isaiah calls the whole flesh and grass, because those three terms, flesh, grass, and people, according to his interpretation, who is himself the writer of the book, signify in that place the same thing. Moreover, you yourself affirm that the wisdom of the Greeks and the righteousness of the Jews which were withered by the gospel were grass, and the flower of grass. Do you then think that the wisdom which the Greeks had was not the most excellent, and that the righteousness which the Jews wrought was not the most excellent? If you do, show us what was more excellent. With what assurance, then, is it that you, Philip-like, flout and say, If anyone shall contend that that which is most excellent in the nature of man is nothing else but flesh, that is, that it is impious, I will agree with him when he shall have proved his assertion by testimonies from the Holy Scripture. You have here Isaiah, who cries with a loud voice that the people, devoid of the spirit of the Lord, is flesh, although you will not understand him thus. You have also your own confession, where you said, though unwittingly perhaps, that the wisdom of the Greeks was grass, or the glory of grass, which is the same thing as saying it was flesh, unless you mean to say that the wisdom of the Greeks did not pertain to reason, or to the hegemonicon, as you say, that is, the principal part of man. If, therefore, you will not deign to listen to me, listen to yourself, where, being caught in the powerful trap of truth, you speak the truth. You have, moreover, the testimony of John, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. John 3, 6. You have, I say, this passage, which makes it evidently manifest that what is not born of the spirit is flesh. For if it be not so, the distinction of Christ could not subsist, who divides all men into two distinct divisions, flesh and spirit. This passage you floutingly pass by, as if it did not give you the information you want, and betake yourself somewhere else, as usual, just dropping, as you go along, an observation that John is here saying that those who believe are born of God and are made the sons of God, nay, that they are gods and new creatures. You pay no regard, therefore, to the conclusion that is to be drawn from this division, but merely tell us at your ease what persons are on one side of the division, thus confidently relying upon your rhetorical maneuver as though there were no one likely to discover an evasion and dissimilation so subtly managed. Section 119. It is difficult to refrain from concluding that you are in this passage crafty in double dealing. For he who treats of the Scriptures with that prevarication and hypocrisy which you practice in treating of them may have face enough to pretend that he is not as yet fully acquainted with the Scriptures and is willing to be taught, when at the same time he wills nothing less, and merely prates thus in order to cast a reproach upon the all-clear light of the Scriptures and to cover with the best cloak his determinate perseverance in his own opinions. Thus the Jews, even to this day, pretend that what Christ, the apostles, and the whole Church have taught is not to be proved by the Scriptures. The Papists, too, pretend that they do not yet fully understand the Scriptures, although the very stones speak aloud the truth. But perhaps you are waiting for a passage to be produced from the Scriptures which shall contain these letters and syllables, the principal part of man is flesh, or that which is most excellent in man is flesh. Otherwise you will declare yourself an invincible victor, just as though the Jews should require that a portion be produced from the prophets which shall consist of these letters. Jesus, the son of the carpenter, who was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, is the Messiah, the Son of God. Here, where you are closely put to it by a plain sentence, you challenge us to produce letters and syllables. In another place, where you are overcome both by the sentence and by the letters, too, you have recursed to tropes, to difficulties, and to sound interpretations. And there is no place in which you do not invent something whereby to contradict the Scriptures. At one time you fly to the interpretations of the Fathers, at another to absurdities of reason, and when neither of these will serve your turn you dwell on that which is irrelevant or contingent. Yet with an especial care that you are not caught by the passage immediately in point. But what shall I call you? Proteus is not half a proteus compared to you. Yet, after all, you cannot get off. What victories did the Arians boast of because these syllables and letters, homoousios, were not to be found in the Scriptures? Considering it nothing to the purpose that the same thing could be most effectually proved in other words. But whether or not this be a sign of a good, not to say pious, mind, and a mind desiring to be taught, let impiety or iniquity itself be judged. Take your victory, then, while we as the vanquished confess that these characters and syllables, that which is most excellent in man is nothing but flesh, is not to be found in the Scriptures. But just behold what a victory you have gained when we most abundantly prove that though it is not found in the Scriptures that one detached portion, or that which is most excellent, or the principal part of man is flesh, but that the whole of man is flesh. And not only so, but that the whole people is flesh. And further still, that the whole human race is flesh. For Christ saith, That which is born of the flesh is flesh. Do you here set about your difficulty solving, your trope inventing, and searching for the interpretations of the fathers, or, turning quite another way, enter upon a dissertation on the Trojan War, in order to avoid seeing and hearing this passage now adduced? We do not believe only, but see and experience that the whole human race is born of the flesh, and therefore we are compelled to believe upon the word of Christ that which we do not see, that the whole human race is flesh. Do we now then give the sophists any room to doubt and dispute whether or not the principal hegemonica part of a man be comprehended in the whole man, in the whole people, in the whole race of men? We know, however, that in the whole human race both the body and soul are comprehended, together with all their powers and works, with all their vices and virtues, with all their wisdom and folly, with all their righteousness and unrighteousness. All things are flesh, because all things savour of the flesh, that is, of their own, and are, as Paul saith, without the glory of God and the Spirit of God. Romans 3.23.8.5-9 Section 120 And as to your saying, Yet every affection of man is not flesh, there is an affection called soul, there is an affection called spirit, by which we aspire to what is meritoriously good, as the philosophers aspired, who taught that we should rather die a thousand deaths than commit one base action, even though we were assured that men would never know it and that God would pardon it. I answer, He who believes nothing certainly may easily believe and say anything. I will not ask you, but let your friend Lucian ask you, whether you can bring forward anyone out of the whole human race. Let him be twofold or sevenfold greater than Socrates himself, whoever performed this of which you speak and which you say they taught. Why then do you thus babble in vanities of words? Could they ever aspire to that which is meritoriously good who did not even know what good is? If I should ask you for some of the brightest examples of your meritorious good, you would say, perhaps, that it was meritoriously good when men died for their country, for their wives and children, and for their parents, or when they refrained from lying or from treachery, or when they endured exquisite torments, as did Q. Sivola, M. Regulus, and others. But what can you point out in all those men but an external show of works? For did you ever see their hearts? Nay, it was manifest from the very appearance of their works that they did all these things for their own glory, so much so that they were not even ashamed to confess and to boast that they sought their own glory. For the Romans, according to their own testimonies, did whatever they did of virtue or valor from a thirst after glory. The same did the Greeks, the same did the Jews, and the same do all the race of men. But though this be meritoriously good before men, yet before God nothing is less meritoriously good than all this. Nay, it is most impious and the greatest of sacrilege, because they did it not for the glory of God, nor that they might glorify God, but with the most impious of all robbery. For as they were robbing God of His glory and taking it to themselves, they never were farther from meritorious good, never more base than when they were shining in their most exalted virtues. How could they do what they did for the glory of God when they neither knew God nor His glory? Not, however, because it did not appear, but because the flesh did not permit them to see the glory of God from their fury and madness after their own glory. This, therefore, is that right-ruling spirit, that principal part of man which aspires to what is meritoriously good. It is a plunderer of the divine glory, and an usurper of the divine majesty, and then the most so when men are at the highest of their meritorious good, and the most glittering in their brightest virtues. Deny, therefore, if you can, that these are flesh and carried away by an impious affection. But I do not believe that the diatribe can be so much offended at the expression where man is said to be either flesh or spirit, because a Latin would here say man is either carnal or spiritual. For this particularly, as well as many others, must be granted to the Hebrew tongue, that when it says man is flesh or spirit, its signification is the same as ours is when we say man is carnal or spiritual. The same signification which the Latins also convey when they say the wolf is destructive to the foals, moisture is favorable to the young corn, or when they say this fellow is iniquity and evil itself. So also the Holy Scripture, by a force of expression, calls man flesh, that is, carnality itself, because it savors too much of, nay of nothing but, those things which are of the flesh, and spirit, because he savors of, seeks, does, and can endure nothing but those things which are of the spirit. Unless perhaps the diatribe should still make this remaining query, supposing the whole of man to be flesh, and that which is most excellent in man to be called flesh, must therefore that which is called flesh be at once called ungodly? I call him ungodly who is without the Spirit of God, for the Scripture saith that the Spirit was therefore given that he might justify the ungodly, and as Christ makes a distinction between the spirit and the flesh, saying that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and adds that that which is born of the flesh cannot see the kingdom of God, John 3, 3-6, it evidently follows that whatsoever is flesh is ungodly, under the wrath of God, and a stranger to the kingdom of God. And if it be a stranger to the kingdom of God, it necessarily follows that it is under the kingdom and spirit of Satan. For there is no medium between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. They are mutually and eternally opposed to each other. These are the arguments that prove that the most exalted virtues among the nations, the highest perfections of the philosophers, and the greatest excellencies among men, appear indeed in the sight of men to be meritoriously virtuous and good, and are so called, but that in the sight of God they are in truth flesh, and subservient to the kingdom of Satan, that is ungodly, sacrilegious, and in every respect evil. Section 121 But pray, let us suppose the sentiment of the diatribe to stand good, that every affection is not flesh, that is ungodly, but is that which is called good in sound spirit. Only observe what absurdity must hence follow, not only with respect to human reason, but with respect to the Christian religion, and the most important articles of faith. For if that which is most excellent in man be not ungodly, nor utterly depraved, nor damnable, but that which is flesh only, that is, the grosser and viler affections, what sort of a redeemer shall we make Christ? Shall we rate the price of his blood so low as to say that it redeemed that part of man only which is the most vile, and that the most excellent part of man has power to work its own salvation, and does not want Christ? Henceforth, then, I must preach Christ as the redeemer, not of the whole man, but of his vilest part, that is, of his flesh, but that the man himself is his own redeemer in his better part. Have it therefore which way you will. If the better part of man be sound, it does not want Christ as a redeemer, and if it does not want Christ, it triumphs in a glory above that of Christ, for it takes care of the redemption of the better part itself, whereas Christ only takes care of that of the vilest part. And then, moreover, the kingdom of Satan will come to nothing at all, for it will reign only in the viler part of man, because the man himself will rule over the better part. So that by this doctrine of yours concerning the principal part of man, it will come to pass that man will be exalted above Christ and the devil both, that is, he will be made God of gods and Lord of lords. Where is now that probable opinion which asserted that free will cannot will anything good? It here contends that it is a principal part, meritoriously good and sound, and that it does not even want Christ, but can do more than God himself and the devil can do put together. I say this that you may again see how eminently perilous a matter it is to attempt sacred and divine things without the Spirit of God and the temerity of human reason. If therefore Christ be the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, it follows that the whole world is under sin, damnation, and the devil. Hence your distinction between the principal parts and the parts not principal profits you nothing. For the world signifies men savoring of nothing but the things of the world throughout all their faculties. Section 122 If the whole man, says the diatribe, even when regenerated by faith is nothing else but flesh, where is the spirit born of the spirit? Where is the child of God? Where is the new creature? I want information upon these points. Thus the diatribe. Where now, where now, my dear friend, diatribe? What dream now? You demand to be informed how the spirit, born of the spirit, can be flesh? Oh, how elated! How secure of victory do you insultingly put this question to me as though it were impossible for me to stand my ground here. All this while you are abusing the authority of the ancients. For they say that there are certain seeds of good implanted in the minds of men. But, however, whether you use or whether abuse the authority of the ancients, it is all one to me. You will see by and by what you believe, when you believe men prating out of their own brain without the word of God. Though perhaps your care about religion does not give you much concern as to what anyone believes, since you so easily believe men without at all regarding whether or not that which they say be certain or uncertain in the sight of God. And I also wish to be informed when I ever taught that with which you so freely and publicly charge me. Who would be so mad as to say that he who is born of the spirit is nothing but flesh? I make a manifest distinction between flesh and spirit as things that directly militate against each other. And I say, according to the divine oracles, that the man who is not regenerated by faith is flesh. But I say that he who is thus regenerated is no longer flesh, excepting as to the remnants of the flesh which wore against the first fruits of the spirit received. Nor do I suppose you wish to attempt to charge me invidiously with anything wrong here. If you do, there is no charge that you could more iniquitously bring against me. But you either understand nothing of my side of the subject, or else you find yourself unequal to the magnitude of the cause by which you are perhaps so overwhelmed and confounded that you do not rightly know what you say against me or for yourself. For where you declare it to be your belief upon the authority of the ancients that there are certain seeds of good implanted in the minds of men, you must surely quite forget yourself. Because you before asserted that free will cannot will anything good. And how cannot will anything good and certain seeds of good can stand in harmony together I know not. Thus I am perpetually compelled to remind you of the subject design with which you set out, from which you with perpetual forgetfulness depart and take up something contrary to your professed purpose. Section 123 Another passage is that of Jeremiah 10.23 I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. This passage, says the diatribe, rather applies to the events of prosperity than to the power of free will. Here again the diatribe, with its usual audacity, introduces a gloss according to its own pleasure, as though the scripture were fully under its control. But in order to anyone's considering the sense and intent of the prophet, what need was there for the opinion of a man of so great authority? Erasmus says so, it is enough, it must be so. If this liberty of glossing as they lust be permitted the adversaries, what point is there which they might not carry? Let, therefore, Erasmus show us the validity of this gloss from the scope of the context, and we will believe him. I, however, will show from the scope of the context that the prophet, when he saw that he taught the ungodly with so much earnestness in vain, was at once convinced that his word could avail nothing unless God should teach them within, and that, therefore, it was not in man to hear the word of God and to will good. Seeing this judgment of God, he was alarmed and asked of God that he would correct him but with judgment if he had need to be corrected, and that he might not be given up to his divine wrath with the ungodly, whom he suffered to be hardened and to remain in unbelief. But let us suppose that the passage is to be understood concerning the events of adversity and prosperity. What will you say if this gloss should go most directly to overthrow free will? This new evasion is invented indeed that ignorant and lazy deceivers may consider it satisfactory, the same which they also had in view who invented that evasion the necessity of the consequence. And so drawn away are they by these newly invented terms that they do not see that they are, by these evasions, tenfold more effectually entangled and caught than they would have been without them. As in the present instance, if the event of these things which are temporal and over which man, Genesis 1, 26-30, was constituted Lord, be not in our own power, how, I pray you, can that heavenly thing, the grace of God, which depends on the will of God alone, be in our own power? Can that endeavor of free will attain unto eternal salvation which is not able to retain a farthing or a hair of the head? When we have no power to obtain the creature, shall it be said that we have power to obtain the Creator? What madness is this? The endeavoring of man, therefore, unto good or unto evil, when applied to events, is a thousandfold more enormous, because he is in both much more deceived and has much less liberty than he has in striving after money or glory or pleasure. What an excellent evasion is this gloss, then, which denies the liberty of man in trifling and created events and preaches it up in the greatest and divine events. This is as if one should say, Codrus is not able to pay a groat, but he is able to pay thousands and thousands of pounds. I am astonished that the diatribe, having all along so invaded against that tenet of Wycliffe that all things take place of necessity, should now itself grant that events come upon us of necessity. And even if you do, says the diatribe, forcibly twist this to apply to free will, all confess that no one can hold on a right course of life without the grace of God. Nevertheless, we still strive ourselves with all our powers, for we pray daily, O Lord my God, direct my goings in thy sight. He, therefore, who implores aid, does not lay aside his own endeavors. The diatribe thinks that it matters not what it answers so that it does not remain silent with nothing to say, and then it would have what it does say to appear satisfactory. Such a vain confidence has it in its own authority. It ought here to have proved whether or not we strive by our own powers, whereas it proved that he who prays attempts something. But, I pray, is it here laughing at us, or mocking the Papists? For he who prays, prays by the Spirit. Nay, it is the Spirit himself that prays in us. Romans 8, 26-27 How then is the power of free will proved by the strivings of the Holy Spirit? Are free will and the Holy Spirit with the diatribe one and the same thing? Or are we disputing now about what the Holy Spirit can do? The diatribe, therefore, leaves me this passage of Jeremiah uninjured and invincible, and only produces the gloss out of its own brain. I also can strive by my own powers, and Luther will be compelled to believe this gloss if he will. Section 124 There is that passage of Proverbs 16, 1 and 9 also. It is of man to prepare the heart, but of the Lord to govern the tongue, which the diatribe says refers to events of things, as though this the diatribe's own saying would satisfy us without any further authority. But, however, it is quite sufficient that allowing the sense of these passages to be concerning the events of things, we have evidently come off victorious by the arguments which we have just advanced, that if we have no such thing as freedom of will in our own things and works, much less have we any such thing in divine things and works. But mark the great acuteness of the diatribe. How can it be of man to prepare the heart when Luther affirms that all things are carried on by necessity? I answer, if the events of things be not in our power, as you say, how can it be in man to perform the causing acts? The same answer which you gave me, the same receive yourself. Nay, we are commanded to work the more for this very reason, because all things future are to us uncertain, as saith Ecclesiastes, In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening hold not thine hand, for thou knowest not which shall prosper, either this or that, Ecclesiastes 11.6. All things future, I say, are to us uncertain in knowledge, but necessary in event. The necessity strikes into us a fear of God that we presume not or become secure, while the uncertainty works in us a trusting that we sink not in despair. But the diatribe returns to harping upon its old string, that in the book of Proverbs many things are said in confirmation of free will, as this, Commit thy works unto the Lord. Do thou hear this, says the diatribe, thy works? Many things in confirmation? What, because there are in that book many imperative and conditional verbs and pronouns of the second person? For it is upon these foundations that you build your proof of the freedom of the will. Thus commit, therefore thou canst commit thy works. Therefore thou doest them. So also this passage, I am thy God, Isaiah 41.10, you will understand thus. That is, thou makest me thy God. Thy faith hath saved thee, Luke 7.50. Do you hear this word, thy? Therefore expound it thus. Thou makest thy faith. And then you have proved free will. Nor am I merely game-making, but I am showing the diatribe that there is nothing serious on its side of the subject. This passage also in the same chapter, The Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. Proverbs 16.4 It modifies by its own words and excuses God as having never created a creature evil. As though I had spoken concerning the creation and not rather concerning that continual operation of God upon the things created, in which operation God acts upon the wicked, as we have before shown in the case of Pharaoh. But he creates the wicked not by creating wickedness, or a wicked creature, which is impossible, but from the operation of God a wicked man is made, or created, from a corrupt seed, not from the fault of the maker, but from that of the material. Nor does that of The heart of the king is in the Lord's hand, and he inclineth it whithersoever he will, Proverbs 21.1, seem to the diatribe to imply force. He who inclines, it observes, does not immediately compel, as though we were speaking of compulsion and not rather concerning the necessity of immutability. And that is implied in the inclining of God, which inclining is not so snoring and lazy a thing as the diatribe imagines, but is that most active operation of God which a man cannot avoid or alter, but under which he has of necessity such a will as God has given him, and such as he carries along by his motion, as I have before shown. Moreover, where Solomon is speaking of the king's heart, the diatribe thinks that the passage cannot rightly be strained to apply in a general sense, but that the meaning is the same as that of Job, where he says in another place he maketh the hypocrite to reign because of the sins of the people. At last, however, it concedes that the king is inclined unto evil by God, but so that he permits the king to be carried away by his inclination in order to chastise the people. I answer, whether God permit or whether he incline, that permitting or inclining does not take place without the will and operation of God, because the will of the king cannot avoid the action of the omnipotent God, seeing that the will of all is carried along just as he wills and acts, whether that will be good or evil. And as to my having made out of the particular will of the king a general application, I did it, I presume, neither vainly nor unskillfully. For if the heart of the king, which seems to be of all the most free and to rule over others, cannot will good but where God inclines it, how much less can any other among men will good. And this conclusion will stand valid, drawn not from the will of a king only, but from that of any other man. For if any one man, how private soever he be, cannot will before God but where God inclines, the same must be said of all men. Thus in the instance of Balaam, his not being able to speak what he wished is an evident argument from the scriptures that man is not in his own power, nor a free chooser and doer of what he does. Were it not so, no examples of it could subsist in the scriptures.