On the Bondage of the Will (De servo arbitrio)

c See note * upon note f, Sect, xxxvi. d Ineptissime longe absurdissime.'] Inept. The weaker term ; denoting properly, ' unaptness/ impertinence/ ' silliness :' absurd. 'the extreme of incongruity and extravagance.' e Ineptus est tantum non aptus ; absurdus, repugnans, abhorrens : itaque absurdus majus quiddam significatj' velut qui surdis auribus audiri dignus est. part in. is just, when the judge constrains to the crime?6 I answer, let Diatribe look to these questions. What are they to me ? She has told us, in her approvable opinion, that Freewill cannot will good, and compels us necessarily into the service of sin. How is it then, that contempt of the commandment is imputed to her; if she cannot will good, and if she have no liberty, but be under a necessary bondage to sin? How is it, that God invites to repentance, when he is the author of man's not repenting ; in that he deserts, or does not confer grace upon him, when, being left alone, he cannot will good ? How is it, that the damnation is just, where the judge, by withdrawing his help, makes it unavoidable that the ungodly man be left to do wickedly ■; since, by his own power, he can do nothing else ? — All these sayings recoil upon the head of Diatribe : or, if they prove any thing, prove (what I have said) that Freewill can do every thing ;

in contradiction to what she has said herself, and every body else. These consequences of reason annoy Diatribe, throughout all her Scripture quotations. It is ridiculous and unmeaning, forsooth, to attack and exact/ in such vehement language, when there is not one present who can fulfil the demand ? The Apostle, all the while, has it for his object to lead ungodly and proud men to the knowledge of themselves and of their own impotency, by the means of these threatenings ; that, having humbled them by the knowledge of sin, he may prepare them for grace.5

e Referring, no doubt, to Rom. iii. 5 — 8. f Invadere et exigere.~] Inv. expresses the assault upon the person: ' in aliquem locum vadoj' ingredior (et fere cum aliquayi, aut impetu), aggredior, irrumpo, irruo. Exig. c extra ago ;' educo. Saepe est reposcere, flagitare, in re pecuniaria : itemque, exigendo obtinere. — The figure is that of a bailiff seizing a man's person and demanding payment of a debt. s It is not necessary to suppose this ulterior design, neither will it extend to all the cases which the Apostle had in view -} though such effect is frequently produced by the instrumen- And why need I recount, one by one, all the sc.xliv. texts which are adduced from Paul's writings; ~ — ; — when she does but collect a number of imperative ^lckllfTs , , f confession or conjunctive verbs, or such expressions as raul confessed. uses in exhorting Christians to the fruits of faith ?h Diatribe however, by adding her own consequences, imagines1 to herself a Freewill of such aud so great virtue, that, without grace, it can do every thing which Paul the exhorter prescribes ? Christians, however, are not led by Freewill, but by the Spirit of God. (Rom. viii. 14.) Now, to be led is not to lead ourselves, but to be driven along, just as the saw or the hatchet k is driven along by the carpenter. And here, least any one should doubt Luther's having said such absurd things, Diatribe recites his words : which I deliberately own; avowing, as I do,1 that WicklifPs

tality of these Scriptures. Such appeals are amongst the strong manifesters of what is in man • in him as what he has made himself, not as what God made him ; in him,, therefore, without excuse. By such manifesters, God, as his pleasure is, both hardeneth and converteth. In chap. ii. it is an exposure of the heart of the Jew as boasting himself against the heathen ; in chap hi. it is the infidel disporting himself against the truth : whose damnation is shewn to be just by the language which he uses ; the language of a heart, which has made itself vile. h See Sect, xxxvi. note f Gospel precepts, whether from the Lord's mouth, or Paul's pen, are words to the Lord's called only ; shewing how the saved should walk : that we, having been delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, aU the days of our life. (Luke i. 74, 75.) 1 Concipit.'] c Translate ponitur pro efformare, comprehendere, intelligere ;' e forms an idea.' k I cannot think Luther very happy in this illustration : the hatchet and the saw have no choice in the hand of the carpenter j but we are led freely, delightingly .

1 Quce sane agnosco. Fateor enim.] Qu. sa. ag. expresses the perfect self-possession and consciousness with which he acknowledges the words as his. Sane. ' Sana mente aut sensu, ubi nihil fuci aut fraudis est.' But it is not honesty and simplicity, so much as calmness, sobriety and stedfastness of judgment, that he claims for himself, in the recognition and restatement of what he had advanced. Fateor enim implies avowal made under circumstances which might tempt to the part in. article (< all things are done by necessity ,' that is, by the unchangeable will of God ; * and oar will, though not compelled indeed to do evil, is incapable of doing any good by its own power'1") suppression of it. His adversaries were the persons to make confession of the evil at Constance, not he: on his part, it was proclamation of accordant, not antagonistic, sentiment j but still, it was testimony borne in adversity — borne, as with a halter round his neck. K Mors sola, fat etur " Quantula sint hominum corpuscula." — Juv. x. 171, 2. Death testifies j but it is, as an unwilling and compelled witness : she would rather boast of her prey, than proclaim its littleness. m This splendid paradox of WicklifFs has been brought into discussion already (see Part ii Sect, xxii.), and is the very essence of divine truth, though so offensive to the enemies of truth, and of many who account themselves its advocates.

WicklifF, with all his blemishes, was a truly great man j enlightened to see and teach much of the mystery of God • more, I am ready to say, than many that came after him and carried off his palm. Most of these acknowledged his worth indeed : for more than a century, those who had light did not disdain to acknowledge that they walked in his light; such as the Lollards, Huss, Jerome, and others. Erasmus gives him to Luther; and Luther is not ashamed to receive and confess him. Certainly, my friend the Dean has not done him justice ; yet he tried, I admit, and meant to do it him. But this necessity, was what the Dean did not thoroughly relish, though he tolerated it : and so he apologized, where WicklifF himself would have gloried ; and when he professes to give a brief sketch of ' his doctrines as extracted from his writings and other authentic documents,' whilst he admits that c his distinguishing tenet was, undoubtedly, the election of grace,' he does not tell us what he held about it, nor even mention this paradox, which seems to have been considered as the centre and heart's core of his creed. — The Dean appears to have attached too much import^ ance to Melancthon's judgment, who was so warped by the Sacramentarian Controversy, in which WicklifFs name was drawn out against the Lutherans, that he went to a great extreme in denying WicklifFs light;

declaring t that he had found in him, also, many other errors' (beside this on the sacrament), ' and that he neither understood nor believed the righteousness of faith.' — I admit that he had much darkness mingled with his light • confusion with his clearness ; pusillanimity with his boldness ; sophistry with his plainness ; rashness with his honest zeal for reform. But I am rather inclined to measure a man by what he has of good, than by what he has also of evil ; and when I see WickHff acknowledged as the first open champion and

was falsely condemned by the Council of Con- sc.xliv. stance ; n or rather by conspiracy and sedition. — m Nay, even Diatribe herself defends him, in conjunction with me; asserting, as she does, that Freewill can will nothing good by its own powers, and serves sin necessarily ; though, in the course of her proof, she establishes the direct contrary. declarer against the abominations of Antichrist ; when I read such profound and luminous testimonies to the ' ' hidden wisdom " in his writings j when I hear martyrs calling him their apostle, and a Cobham ' solemnly professing before God and man that he never abstained from sin till he knew Wickliff — but that after he became acquainted with that virtuous man and his despised doctrines it had been otherwise with him j' when I recollect, that he was the first who gave the Bible to our nation in English, and vindicated the right of the common people to read it ; when I find the more determined of the reformers of the sixteenth century owning him as their forerunner, and their revilers casting him in their teeth : I am ashamed to ask what doctrine he held about tithes -, to doubt his sincerity, because his circumstances drew him into an undesirable degree of mixture with carnal statesmen ; to weigh the words which he dropped, in the hour of the power of darkness, in a pair of scales ; and to ( rejoice in finding evidence,' as the result of much pious search, ' that this celebrated champion did belong to the church of Christ.' Huss in the flames, and the Swift receiving his unintombed ashes, shall be my witnesses that he spake by the Holy Ghost.

n We have heard of the Council of Constance already (see Part ii. Sect. viii. note v); it was numerous, turbulent, and long : it put down three Popes, and erected one 5 raved about reform, and confirmed sword-preaching;* condemned a dead saint, and burnt two living ones ; denied necessity, made a Sigismund blush, and did one good thing amidst all these bad ones, by setting Councils above Popes. * Outrages of the Teutonic knights in Poland and Prussia ; where they obtained a professed subjection to the Gospel by fire and sword ! Erasmus has but two Texts to kill. Let what has been said suffice in answer to Diatribe's first part, in which she endeavours to establish the reality of Freewill ; and let us now consider her second part, in which she seeks to confute the testimonies on our side of the question : those, I mean, by which its existence is negatived. You will see here what a man-raised smoke is, when opposed to God's thunders and lightnings ! First then, after having recited innumerable texts of Scripture in support of Freewill, as a sort of army too dreadful to encounter (that she may give courage to the confessors and martyrs, and all the holy men and women who staud up for Freewill ; and may inspire fear and trembling into all who are guilty of the sin of denying it) ; she pretends that the host which comes to oppose Freewill is contemptible in point of numbers, and goes on to represent that there are but two passages which stand conspicuous above the rest on this side of the argument : having nothing in her mind, as it should seem, but slaughter, and making sure of accomplishing it without much trouble. One of these is from Exod. ix. cc The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart:" the other is from Malachi i. « Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I

hated." Strange, what an odious and unprofitable sect. ii. discussion Paul did take up, in the judgment of Diatribe, when he expounded both these at large to the Romans ! In short, if the Holy Ghost were not a little knowing in rhetoric, there would be danger lest his heart should melt within him, through this great reach of art in pretending such vast contempt ; and, lest absolutely despairing of his cause, he should yield the palm to Freewill, before the trumpet has called the champions into the lists. Presently, however, I shall come up as the reserve a to these two Scriptures, and shew my forces also : and yet, where such is the fortune of the battle, that one man puts ten thousand to flight, what need is there of forces ? If one text of Scripture shall have conquered Freewill, her innumerable forces will be of no use to her. Here therefore Diatribe has discovered a new Kills bymethod of eluding the plainest texts, by choosing iesolvjng to understand a trope in the simplest and clearest tropes? forms of speech. As, in the former instance, when which he pleading for Freewill, she eluded b the force of all ttthek*7 the imperative and conjunctive law words by example. adding inferences, and superadding similies of her own invention; c so now, on her setting out to plead

a Succenturiatus.'] e Succenturiati dicuntur, qui explendae centuriae gratia subjiciunt se ad supplementum ordinum.' — Luther would consider himself as ' the leader of an army of reserve ;' though such army would be unnecessary, since the two invalidated texts would keep their ground. — Pugnae for tuna. Luther speaks here, '"more Ethnicorumj' who, it is well known, ascribed every thing to Fortune, erecting temples and altars to her, and accounting ' Fortunatus ' (' favoured of fortune ') the most illustrious title they could ascribe to their generals. But Luther well knew the God of battles ; nor meant to ascribe their issue to any other than Him ; " even the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle !" b Elusit.~\ It was evading the natural and legitimate interpretation of those words, when she practised with them so as to pass them off for assertives. cAdjectas. affictas] Adj. ' addere/ ( adjungere :' affict. ( ssepius est fingendo adder e! part iv. against us, she turns and twists all words of divine promise and affirmation just which way she pleases, by discovering a trope in them : that Proteus may be alike inapprehensible on both sides.d Nay, she demands this for herself with great superciliousness at our hands ; because we> as she pretends, are wont also ourselves to make our escape from the pursuer, when hard pressed,6 by discovering tropes. In that passage, for instance,

' Stretch out thine hand to whichsoever thou wilt ;' that is, 6 grace shall stretch out thy hand to whichsoever she wills/ ' Make you a new heart ;* that is, - grace shall make you a new heart:' and the like/ It seems a great shame then, if Luther may have leave to introduce so violent and forced an interpretation ; but we may not so much as be allowed to follow the interpretations of the most approved doctors. You see then, that our dispute here is not about the text, as it is in itself;6 nor, as in former instances, about inferences and similies; but about tropes

d Utrobique.'] In both parts of the discussion : the former, where Freewill is maintained ; the latter, where its opponents are repelled. Incomprehensibilis. ' Uncatchable j' if there were such a word ! e Ubi urgemur, elabi.'] Elab. The primary idea is that of the snake slipping out of the hand, or water gliding secretly from its source 3 which is tranferred to e silent escape from a pursuing enemy.' Urgr. is the state of one driven along by the goad or spear, when he can advance no further. (See Part i. Sect. ix. note d.) ' In this state, says Erasmus, they cry out " trope," " trope 5" as a sort of new discovery which they have made.' f Extende manum. Facite vobis.~] See above, Part iii. Sect. vi. — t Ezek. xviii. 31. s Non de textu ipso."] Since it is not interpretation, must refer to genuineness. It is not, as the question was about Eccleus. xv. where the authority of the book quoted is doubtful \ or other texts which might be named, where the soundness of some particular verse or word might be disputed, though the book were authorized ; but whether the acknowledged text is to be understood tropically, and whether certain proposed interpretations be admissible.

and interpretations. c 0 when shall it be, as sec. hi. some will say, that we get a plain and pure — — text,11 without inferences and tropes, for and against Freewill ? Has Scripture no such texts ? And shall the cause of Freewill be for ever an undecided one ? one, not settled by any sure text, but driven like a reed by the winds: because nothing" is brought forwards in debating it, save a number of tropes and inferences, the production of men quarrelling mutually with each other V Let us rather judge, that neither inference, nor Trope and trope, ought to be admitted into any passage of c°™*~e Scripture, unless an evident context,1 and some when only absurdity, which offendeth against one of the t0.J)te?d'' articles of our faith, in the plain meaning,k constrain us to such interpretation and inference : on the contrary, that we ought every where to stick close to that simple, pure and natural sense of words, which both the art of grammar, and the common use of speech as God created it in man, direct us to.1 For, if any man may, at his pleasure, invent inferences and tropes for Scripture ; what will all Scripture be, but a reed shaken by the winds, or a sort of Vertumnus ? Then it will indeed be true, that nothing certain can be affirmed or proved, as N touching any article of faith; since you may quibble it away by some pretended trope. m Rather, let every trope be avoided,

h Simpliceyi, purumque.'] Simp. ' Free from figure.' c Pur. ' Free from human additions.' i Circumstantia verborum evident. k Absurdltas rei manifesto;. 1 Quam grammatica. . . . liabetJ] Luther had no doubt whence the use of speech was derived to man (pepo-Tres uvOpumoC) ■ however some heathen, and demi-heathen, philosophers may have made it matter of speculation : even from him, who prompted its exercise when he brought the animals unto Adam to see what he would call them (Gen. ii. 19, 20) ; and who afterwards came down to confound that one language which he had given. (Gen. xi. 5 — 9.) m Quod non queas aliquo tropo cavillari.'] You have but to insinuate, that the texts brought to prove it are figurative, and do not mean what they seem. part iv. as the most destructive poison, which Scripture herself does not compel us to receive. See what has befallen that great trope-master Origen/ in expounding the Scriptures ! What just occasion does he afford to the calumniating Porphyry ! ° insomuch, that even Jerome p thinks it of n Origen of Alexandria, the great father of mystical and allegorical interpretation, suffered martyrdom in the 69th year of his age, a. d. 254. — There was much, no doubt, to condemn in him, but something also to commend. Whilst strangely defective in his perceptions of divine truth, he was learned, upright, disinterested, and laborious : a man of conscience and of magnanimity.

Philosophy and literature were his bane. He did much mischief to the church by his style of interpreting Scripture, not only in rendering human fancies for a season fashionable, to the exclusion of plain truth ; but, as a remote consequence, by bringing even the sober use of types and figures — that pregnant source of lively and particularizing instruction — into the contempt with which it has now for some ages been loaded. — Two sentences of his are worthy to be preserved. On the words, ' f We conclude that a man is justified by faith" (Rom. iii.) he says, e The justification of faith only, is sufficient ; so that, if any person only believe, he may be justified, though no good work hath been fulfilled by him.' On the case of the penitent thief, he writes, ' He was justified by faith, without the works of the law j because, concerning these, the Lord did not inquire what he had done before j neither did he stay to ask what work he was purposing to perform after he had believed; — but, the man being justified by his confession only, Jesus who was going to Paradise, took him as a companion and carried him there.' — His Hexapla furnished the first specimen of a Polyglot.

° Porphyry, a Platonic philosopher, who lived in the same century with Origen, made great use of his fanciful interpretations, in reviling Christianity. From the serious pains taken by the ancient Christians to confute him, it may be presumed that his works (which are now chiefly lost) were subtle and ingenious ; but his testimony, like that of most other infidels, has been made to redound to the establishment, instead of the subversion, of the Gospel. (See Chap. xxi. Cent. iii. of Milner's Ecc. Hist, where a remarkable assemblage of testimonies to this conclusion is skilfully adduced : and see, especially, vol. ii. of Fry's Second Advent, where Gibbon is made the same sort of unintentional witness.) — Porphyry censures Origen for c leaving Gentilism, and embracing the barbarian temerity :' whereas Origen was, in fact, brought up under christian parents, and a man of christian habits from his youth. He compliments Origen upon his skill in philosophy, but ridicules little avail to defend Origen. What has come to sec. hi. the Avians, through that trope of theirs, by which they make Christ a mere nuncupative God?q What has come to these new prophets in our day, who, in expounding Christ's words, ( This is my body/ find a trope, one of them in the pronoun 'this;' another in the verb 'is;' a third in the noun 'body?'1 It is the result of my observa-

his introduction of it into the Scriptures ; which, as this enemy justly teaches, abhor such an associate. p Jerome, the renowned monk of Stridon, in Pannonia, had a good deal of the spirit of Origen. Luther says, even Jerome : a man of prodigious learning, lively eloquence, and vigorous mind, but of small discernment in the truth} one taught of man, more than of God. He was born under Constantine, a. d. 331, the contemporary of Augustine, and his opponent ; ever, and all his days, a controversialist : peevish and vain; self-righteous and superstitious; but sincere and devout. — To him the Romish church owes her Vulgate. ' In his very voluminous expositions, he speaks at random : is allegorical beyond all bounds, and almost always without accuracy and precision ; lowers the doctrine of illumination in 1 Cor. ii. to things moral and practical; hints at something like a first and second justification before God ; asserts predestination, and as it were retracts it; owns a good will as from God in one place, in another supposes a power to choose to be the whole of divine grace ; never opposes fundamental truths deliberately, but though he owns them every where, always does so defectively, and often inconsistently. It must be confessed, the reputation of this Father's knowledge and abilities has been much overrated. There is a splendour in a profusion of illdigested learning, coloured by a lively imagination, which is often mistaken for sublimity of genius. This was Jerome's case ; but this was not the greatest part of the evil. His learned ignorance availed, more than any other cause, tojrjve a celebrity to superstition in the christian world, and to darken the light of the Gospel. Yet, when he was unruffled by contradiction, and engaged in meditations unconnected with superstition, he could speak with christian affection concerning the characters and offices of the Son of God.' (See Miln. Eccl. Hist, volii. p. 481.

' Deum nuncupativam."] A sort of titular God ; one called so, but not really so. — See above, Part ii. Sect. viii. note r. r Luther, as we all know, is not very sound here. His consubstantiation of the sacramental elements avoids a trope ; but the trope here falls in with his admitted exception, ' Scripture herself compels us to receive it.' The same portion of matter cannot be extended in two places at the same moment. The part iv. tion, that, of all the heresies and errors which have arisen from false expositions of Scripture, none have proceeded from understanding words in that simple sense in which they are bandied amongst men almost all the world over ; but from neglecting their simple use, and affecting tropes or inferences which are the laboured offspring of their own brain. SECT. IV. For example ; I do not remember, that I have ever applied such a violent sort of interpretation Luther de- to the words c Stretch out thine hand to whichSsedhtrope soever thou wilt/ as to say, ' Grace shall stretch in his in- out thine hand to whichsoever she wills/ — Srofa" * Make you a new heart / that is, ' Grace shall "Stretch make you a new heart/ and the like: although out" and Diatribe traduces me, in a published treatise, as

having spoken thus. In fact, she is so distracted and beguiled3 by her tropes and inferences, that she does not know what she says about any body. What I have really said is, 'when the words " stretch forth thy hand, 8cc. &c." are taken simply according to their real import, exclusive of bread therefore, which the Lord held in his hand whilst instituting the ordinance, could not at the same instant be bread and hand ; or bread and body. The same is true of the cup : it must have been a distinct substance from the hand which held it 5 and therefore could not be really the Lord's blood j which could indeed only be drunk as poured out, and at the instant when He spake, was yet in his veins, — Add to this, the simple but decisive illustration which was suggested to Zuingle's mind in a dream, and which was so greatly blessed in the use he was afterwards led to make of it. * You stupid man, why do not you answer him from the twelfth of Exodus, as it is there written, <e It is the Lord's passover." ' — Luther calls the Sacramentists promiscuously e the new prophets :' not very ingenuously ; for even Carolstadt disclaimed all connection with the Celestial Prophets, as they were called — whilst Zuingle and CEcolampadius, in whom the sinews of the contest were, afforded no pretence for such imputation. — Milh. Eccles. Hist. vol. iv. chaps, vi. ix. pp. 772—810, 990, &c. 1127. 8.

s Distenta et illu$a.~\ Dist. c Distractus, duplici cura occupatus j cui duo simul res, diversis partibus, euram injiciunt.' Rectius a ' distineo,' quam ( distendo/ ducitur. tropes and inferences, they express no more than sect.iv. a demand that we stretch out our hand : by which ** demand, is intimated to us what we ought to do ; according to the nature of the imperative verb, as explained by grammarians, and applied in common speech/ Diatribe, however, neglecting this simple use of the verb and dragging in her tropes and inferences by force, interprets thus : u Stretch out thine hand;" that is, 'thou canst stretch out thine hand by thine own power / u Make you a new heart;" that is, c ye can make you a new heart/ " Believe in Christ;" that is, 6 ye can believe/ Thus, it is in her account the same thing whether words be spoken imperatively, or indicatively ; if not, she is prepared to represent Scripture as ridiculous and vain. Yet these interpretations, which no scholar1 can bear, may not be called violent and far-fetched,u when used by theologians ; but are to be welcomed, as those of the most approved doctors who have been received for ages !v

But it is very easy for Diatribe to allow of tropes and to adopt them in this text : it is no matter to her, whether, what is said be certain or uncertain. Nay, her very object is to make every thing uncertain ; counselling as she does, that all 1 Nulli grammatico fcrendas.~\ Gram. c ad grammaticam pertinens :' but this term, it seems, was especially applied to those who interpreted classical Avriters ; such as Donatus, Festus, Nonnius, Asconius and others ; not to teachers of grammar : differing from grammatista, which is sometimes used invidiously. u Jffectatas~] So, in the last section, c affectatis proprio cerebro tropis :' e nimio, aut pravo, offectu et studio cupitus, qusesitus.' ( De re majore studio et cura conquisita et elaborata.' Our English term e affected,' opposed to ( natural,' implies the same thing : what is factitious, and the result of effort. It is not ' the design, wherewith,' that is marked in these two passages, but ( the labour and search employed.' v Has. . . . probatissimorum sunt doctorum.~] The sentence is not grammatical. part iv. dogmas on Freewill should be left to themselves, rather than investigated. It would have been

enough for her, therefore, to get rid of sayings by which she feels herself to be hard pressed, in any way she can.x But I — who am in earnest and not in sport, and who am in search of most indubitable truth, for the establishing of the consciences of men — must act very differently. For me, I say, it is not enough that you tell me, there may be a trope here. The question is, whether there ought to be, and must be a trope here. If you have not shewn me, that there must necessarily be a trope here ; you have done nothing. Here stands the word of God, " I will harden Pharaoh's heart ." If you tell me, it must be understood, or may be understood, ' I will permit it to be hardened ;' I hear what you say, that it may be so understood. I hear that this trope is commonly used in popular discourse; just as, cl have ruined you; because I did not instantly correct you, when you were going astray/ But this is not the place for such sort of proof. It is not the question, whether such a trope be in use. It is not the question, whether a person might use it in this passage of Paul's writings. The question is, whether it would be safe for him to use it, and certain that he used it rightly, in this place ; and whether Paul meant to use it. We are not inquiring about another man's — the reader's use of it — but about Paul's, the author's own use of it.

What would you do with a conscience which should question you in this way? ' Lo, God the author of the book says, " I will harden Pharaoh's heart." The ^meaning of the word ' harden ' is obvious and notorious. But a human reader tells me, ' to harden, in this place, is to give occasion of hardening, inasmuch as the sinner is not x Utcunque avwUri dicta.] Amol. dicr. prop, de iis qui magno conatu et molimine dimoventur. instantly corrected/ With what authority, with sect. v. what design, with what necessity, is that natural meaning of the word so tortuved for me ? What if my interpreting reader be mistaken? Where is it proved, that this torturing of the word ought to take place here? It is dangerous, it is even impious, to torture the word of God without necessity, and without authority. Will you next tutor this labouring little soul/ c Origen thought so?' Or thus; ( cease to pry into such matters, seeing they are curious and vain/ She will reply, \ Moses and Paul ought to have had this admonition given to them, before they wrote ; or rather, God himself. To what end do they distract us with curious and vain sayings?'

This wretched evasion of tropes, then, is of no Diatribe service to Diatribe; but we must keep strong nm** b hold of our Proteus here, till he make us perfectly scripture sure that there is a trope in this identical passage, or miracle, either by the clearest Scripture proofs, or by vlly paes_ evddent miracles. We do not give the least be- sage in lief to her mere thinking so, though it be backed J^J" by the toil and sweat of all ages.2 But I go further, and insist that there can be no trope here, but that this saying of God must be understood in its simplicity, according to the literal meaning of the words. For it is not left to our own will to make, and re-make, words for God as we please : else what would be left in all Scripture, which y AnimulcE.'] We are reminded of the Emperor Adrian's ' Animula vagula blandula.' Anim. vel contemptus, vel blanditiae causa. Here, it implies ' tenderness :' a weakling soul, tenderly felt for, by the Lord and by bis messengers. z Indus trid consentiente.~] Indust. f Vis ingenii qua quippium excogitamus, ct adipiscimur. Itaque supra naturam et ingenium addit studium, et artem, et laborem.' He refers to the ' affectatis tropis ' and ' affectatas interpretationes,' which he reprehended in the last section. There was much of scholastic art and cloistered industry in them ; but he must have light from heaven — the Holy Ghost's testimony either in the word, or in some palpable, new- wrought miracle — before he would be satisfied that there is a trope in these words.

part iv. does not just come back to Anaxagoras's phiio- sophy,a * Make what you please of any thing/ Suppose I should say, " God created the heavens and the earth ?' that is, * he set them in order ; but he did not make them out of nothing.' Or, ' He created the heavens and the earth ;' that is, the angels and the devils, or the righteous and the wicked. Upon this principle, a man has but to open the book of God, and by and by he is a theologian.b Let it be a settled and fixed principle then, that, when Diatribe cannot prove that there is a trope in these passages of ours which she is refuting,0 she be obliged to concede to us, that the words must be understood according to their literal import; even though she should prove that the same trope is of most frequent use elsewhere, both in all parts of Scripture and in common discourse. If this principle be admitted, all our testimonies which Diatribe meant to confute, have been defended at once ; and her confutation is found to have effected absolutely nothing, to have no power, to be a mere nothing.

When she interprets that saying of Moses, therefore, u I will harden Pharaoh's heart," to mean f My lenity in bearing with a sinner, leads others, it is true, to repentance, but it shall render Pharaoh more obstinate in his wickedness ;' this is a pretty saying, but there is no proof that she a Anaxagoras, a philosopher of Clazomenae, the preceptor of Socrates, amongst many other paradoxes, is said to have insisted that ' snow was black, because made of water.' b Quis non. . . . Theologus.] If a man's own whimsies, without search or proof, are to be protruded as doctrines and interpretations of Scripture ; we have but to open the book and consult our fancy, and straightway we may dub ourselves divines. c Quos diluit.~\ Dil. properly ( lavando aufero,' as the water washes the sides of the canal, or the heavy rain washes away the labours of the husbandman : hence transferred to the removal of filth from any substance j and particularly, in a forensic sense, to the purging of a charge. ' Diluere crimen est purgare, refellere, criminibus respondendo et accusationes refutando.' ' Si nollem ita diluere crimen, ut dilui.' — Cic. pro MHon.

ought to speak so ; and we, not content with a sect. v. mere * ipse dixit/ demand proof. So she interprets that saying of Paul's plausibly ; " He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth /'.that is, c God hardeneth, when he doth not instantly chastise the sinner ; he hath mercy, when he presently invite th to repentance, by afflictions/ But what proof is there of this interpretation? So that of Isaiah, " Thou hast made us to err from thy ways, thou hast hardened our heart from thy fear."d What if Jerome, following Origen, interpret thus; ' The man is said to seduce who does not straightway call back from error/ Who shall assure us that Jerome and Origen interpret this passage rightly? And what if they do? It is our compact, that we will contest the matter not on the ground of any human teacher's authority, but on that of Scripture only. Who are these Origens and Jeromes then, which Diatribe, forgetting her solemn covenant, throws in my teeth ? when as, of the ecclesiastical writers, there be none almost, who have handled the Scriptures more foolishly and more absurdly, than Origen and Jerome.

In a word, such a licentiousness of interpretation comes to this ; by a new and unheard of sort of grammar all distinctions are confounded: so that, when God says, " I will harden Pharaoh's heart/' you change persons and understand him to say, 6 Pharaoh hardens himself through my lenity.' c God hardens our heart/ that is, we harden our own hearts, through God's deferring to punish us. u Thou, O Lord, hast made us to err/' that is, we have made ourselves to err, through thy not chastising us. So, * God's having mercy,' no longer signifies ' his giving grace,' or € exer- d Isaiah lxiii. 17. Our authorized version reads it as a question, " O Lord, why hast thou made us to err, &c." part IV. cising compassion/ 'forgiving sin/ 'justifying/ or 'delivering from evil/ but, on the contrary, ' his inflicting evil and punishing/ You will at last make it out by these tropes, that God had pity on the children of Israel, when he carried them away into Assyria and to Babylon : for there it was that he chastised his offenders, there it was that he invited them to repentance by afflictions. On the other hand, when he brought them back and gave them deliverance, he did not pity but harden them ; that is, by his lenity and pity, he gave occasion to their being hardened. Thus, the sending of Christ the Saviour into the world, shall not be called an act of mercy in God, but an act of hardening;

since by this mercy he hath given men occasion to harden themselves. On the other hand, in having laid Jerusalem waste, and destroyed0 the Jews unto this very day, he shows mercy towards them ; inasmuch as he chastises them for their sin, and invites them to repentance. In carrying his saints to heaven at the day of judgment, he will not perform an act of mercy but of induration : inasmuch as he will give them an opportunity of abusing his goodness. In thrusting the wicked into hell; herein, he will shew mercy, because it will be chastising the sinner. Who ever heard, pray, of such compassions and such wraths of God as these ?

What, if good men are made better by the for- c PerdiditJ] c AttoWvw, airofiaXhw, destruo, everto, deperdo. Si vocem spectes, est a per et do ; si notionem, a 7rep6(v, vasto, esse videtur.' There is a miraculous peculiarity in Israel's case, as a nation : perishing", he does not perish ; destroyed, he still is preserved. 1 had therefore hesitated to render perd. according to its natural and proper meaning ; and was disposed to adopt ' give up,' ' abandon,' ' cast off,' or ' scatter { which would not, it seems, have been incongruous with its essential meaning. But why should Luther have used this term in preference to the others ; and has not their dispersion been in fact their destruction, as a state } city, and nation ? bearance, as well as by the severity of God; still, sect. v. when we speak of good and bad men promis- * cuously, these tropes will make the mercy of God wrath, and his wrath mercy, by a most perverse use of speech : since they call it wrath, when God is conferring benefits ; and pity, when he is inflicting judgments. Now, if God shall be said to harden, when he is conferring benefits and bearing with evil ; f and shall be said to have mercy, when he is afflicting and chastising; why is he said to have hardened Pharaoh rather than the children of Israel, or even the whole world?

Did he not confer benefits upon the children of Israel ? does he not confer benefits upon the whole world ? does he not bear with the wicked? does he not send his rain upon the evil and upon the good? — Why is he said to have had compassion on the children of Israel, rather than upon Pharaoh ? Did he not afflict the children of Israel, in Egypt and in the desert?5 I grant that some abuse, and others rightly use, God's wrath and goodness. But you define hardening to be ' God's indulging the wicked with forbearance and kindness ;' ' God's having compassion to be' that he does not indulge, but visits and cuts short. So far as God is concerned therefore, he does but harden by perpetual kindness ; he does but shew mercy by perpetual severity.11

f BenefacU. toleraf] Benef. <( heapeth his benefits ; " tol. et endureth with much long-suffering." s If God hardens by conferring benefits, why is he said to have hardened Pharaoh rather than the children of Israel ? If God shews mercy by afflicting, why is he said to have had mercy on Israel in afflicting him, and not on Pharaoh ? h Luther admits that there is a different effect produced in different characters 5 ' the good profit by both good and evil ; ' * some use, and others abuse, both kindness and wrath.' But the question here is, what character shall we assign to God's dispensations of judgment and of mercy as falling generally upon men 5 upon good and evil intermixed : cum simul de bonis et malis loquimur ? The result will be, God's mercy is anger • and his anger, mercy. — The truth is, God does harden by part iv. But this is the best of all, that, < God is said to harden, when he indulges sinners with for- sect, vi. bearance ; and to pity, when he visits and afflicts, Erasmus' mv*ting to repentance by severity.' What did trope God omit, pray, in the way of afflicting, chas-

makes tising, calling Pharaoh to repentance? Do we of Moses, not number ten plagues, as inflicted in that land? and leaves If your definition stands good; that, ' to have tied. DOt mercy is straightway to chastise and call the sinner ; * assuredly, God had mercy upon Pharaoh. Why then does not God say, I will have mercy upon Pharaoh, instead of saying I will harden Pharaoh's heart? For, when he is in the very act of pitying him ; that is, as you will have it, of afflicting and chastising him ; he says, c I will harden him ; ' that is, as you will have it, ( I will do him good, and will bear with him : ' what can be more monstrous to hear, than this ? What has now become of your tropes, your Origen, your Jerome, and your most approved doctors; whom the solitary individual, Luther, is rash enough to contradict? But it is the foolishness of the flesh which compels you to speak thus ; sporting as she does with the words of God, which she cannot believe to have been spoken in earnest. The text itself therefore, as written by Moses, proves incontrovertibly, that these tropes are mere inventions, and of no worth in this place ; and that something very different and far greater — over and above the bestowal of benefits, together with affliction and correction — -is meant by the words, UI will harden Pharaoh's heart:" since we cannot deny that both these expedients were tried in Pharaoh's case, with the greatest care

mercies as 'well as judgments ; and does soften by judgments, as well as mercies : but both the hardening and the softening are distinct from the dispensations which are made the instrument of producing them. It is a variety in the spirit which meets with them, and upon which they act, which causes variety .;in the result. and pains. For what wrath and correction could sec. vn. be more urgent, than that which he was called to — ' endure, whilst stricken with so many signs and plagues, that even Moses himself testifies the like were never seen ! Nay, even Pharaoh himself was moved by them more than once, as though he repented : albeit, not moved to purpose,1 nor abidingly. At the same time, what forbearance and kindness could be more abundant, than that which so readily took away his plagues, so often forgave his sin,k so often restored his blessings, so often removed his calamities ? Each sort of dispensation, however, is unavailing ; the Lord still says, * I will harden Pharaoh's heart/ You see then, that even though your hardening and your mercy (that is, your glosses and tropes) should be admitted in their highest degree, use, and exemplification — such as they are exhibited to us in Pharaoh — there still remains an act of hardening; and the hardening of which Moses speaks must be of one sort, and what you are dreaming of, another.

But since I am fighting with men of fiction Necessity and with ghosts, let me also be allowed to con- staJ re- , i, i . -i . • mams, and jure up my ghost and imagine, what is lm- youdonot possible, that the trope which Diatribe sees in clear God. her dream is really used in this passage ; that I may see how she evades the being compelled to affirm, that we do every thing by God's alone will, and by a necessity that is laid upon us; as also, how she will excuse God from being himself the author1 and blameworthy cause of our induration. If it be true, that God is said to 1 Permovetur.] — ' Valde movetur : ' what goes through the substance, and disturbs it throughout j not merely stirs the surface and margin. k Remittit peccatum.~\ So far as withdrawing present judgment may be taken as a sign of forgiveness : but was his sin blotted out ? any one of the sins which had instrumentally provoked the visitation I 1 Autor et culpa. part iv. harden us, when he bears with us through an exercise of his lenity, and does not forthwith punish us ; each of the two following principles still remains. First, man does nevertheless necessasarily serve sin. For, when it has been granted that Freewill can not will any thing good (and such a sort of Freewill is what Diatribe has undertaken to prove), it is made no better by the forbearance of a long-suifering God, but is necessarily made worse ; unless through the mercy of God, the Spirit be added to it. So that all things still happen by necessity; as it respects us.

Secondly, God seems to be as cruel in bearing with men out of lenity, as he is thought to be through our representation; who say, that he hardens in the exercise of that inscrutable will of his.m For, since he sees that Freewill can will nothing good, and is made worse by his lenity in bearing with us, this very lenity exhibits him in the most cruel form, as one that is delighted with our calamities : seeing he could heal them, if he would ; and could avoid bearing with us if he would; or rather, could not bear with us, except it were his will to do so : for who could compel him to do so, against his will ? If that will therefore remains, without which nothing happens in the world; and it be granted, that Freewill can will nothing good; all that is said to excuse God, and to accuse Freewill, is said to no purpose. For Freewill is always saying, e I cannot, and God will not : what can I do ? Let him shew me mercy, forsooth, by afflicting me ; I am never the forwarder for it, but must be made worse ; except he give me the Spirit. This he does not give ; which he would give, if it were his will to do so : it is certain therefore, that he wills not to give it/n

m Volendo voluntate Hid imperscrutabili.~] See above, Part iii. Sect, xxviii. notes l v x. n Luther's drift is, ' There must be a will of God distinct Nor are the similes, which she adduces, at all sec.viii. to the purpose, when she says, c As mud is hard- "~ 7~7~ ened by the self-same sun which melts wax ; and, ^iies of as the cultivated ground produces fruit by means sun and of the self-same shower from which the untilled ™j."eJe" sends forth thorns ; even so, by the self-same forbearance of God, some are hardened and others converted/ We do not divide Freewill into two different sorts, making one to be mud and the other wax ; or one to be cultivated ground, and the other neglected ground : but we speak of one sort of Freewill, which is equally impotent in all men ; which is nothing else but the mud, nothing else but the untilled ground, in these comparisons — seeing it is what cannot will good. Nor does Paul say that God, in his character of the potter, makes one vessel to honour and another to dishonour, out of a different lump of clay; but " of the same lump, saith he, the potter maketh, &c." So that, as the mud always becomes harder, and the uncultivated ground more thorny, by the sun and rain, severally ; even so, Freewill is always made worse, as well by the indurating mildness of the sun as by the liquefying violence of the rain.° If the definition of Freewill then be one, and its impotency the same in all men ;

no reason can be assigned, why one man's Freewill attains to grace, and another man's does not ; if no other cause be declared than the forbearance of an enduring God and the correction of a pitying one : for it is assumed, by a definition which makes no distinctions, that Freewill in every man is a power which can will nothing good. Then it will

from that which he has revealed for the regulation of man's conduct : what he calls ' the inscrutable will/ or ' will of the hidden God.' — My quarrel against him is, that he does not shew the connection and coincidence between these two wills ; and does not shew a reason for this apparently harsh conduct. See, as before. ° Tempestate pluvice liquefaciente. part iv. follow, that neither does God elect any man, ■ neither is there any place left for election ; but man's Freewill alone elects, by accepting or rejecting forbearance and wrath. But deprive God of his wisdom and power in election, and what do you make him but a sort of phantom of fortune; whose nod is the rash ordainer of all things ?p Thus, we shall at length come to this, that men are saved and damned, without God's knowing it : seeing, he has not separated the saved and the damned by a determined election ; but — bestowing on all, without distinction, first a kindness which bears with them and hardens them ; then a pity which corrects and punishes them — has left it to men, to determine whether they will be saved or damned ; and himself, meanwhile, has just stepped out perhaps to a banquet of the Ethiopians, as Homer describes him.q

Aristotle also paints just such a God for us;r p Cujus numine omnia temere ftunt. Chance is the God. *1 Zevs <yap eV' 'Qiceavou jaer a/mv/xova<i AlOiOTrrjas X^t^os ej3w fiera calra' Qeoi d a/xa 7ravTe9 €7tovto' AivSeKarn 8e rot avOis ehev&erai Ov\v/H7rop8e' r Aristotle, the disciple and opponent of Plato, the tutor of Alexander, the great master of rhetoric, belles lettres, logic, physics, metaphysics, and heathen ethics, was in theology little better than an Epicurean ; one of those ( who have learned that the Gods spend a life without care.' (Hor. 1. Sat. v. 101.) It is said in excuse for the less explicit parts of his system, that ' he attached himself to the principles of natural philosophy, rather than those of theology.' He maintained the existence of a God as the great mover of all things ; which have been put into motion from eternity, and will continue in motion to eternity. Thus he maintained the eternity of matter as well as of God, He painted this God finely : ' the necessary being;' f the first, and the most excellent of beings;' ' immutable, intelligent, indivisible, without extension:' * He resides above the enclosure of the world/ ' He there finds his happiness in the contemplation of himself.' — How apt is the expression, by which Luther describes him as painting God ! (pinxit) a rhetorical term applied to that sort of discourse ' which is embellished with tropes and figures, such as display much genius, but charm by their sweetness., rather than edify by their intelligence,'

one who sleeps, for example, and suffers any that sec.viil will, to use and to abuse his goodness and his severity.5 And how can reason judge otherwise of God, than Diatribe here does ? For, as she herself snores away, and despises divine things; Aristotle's God, then, is one who keeps order in the heavens, but interferes in a very limited degree with earth. ' All the movements of nature are in some sort subordinated to him ; He appears to be the cause and principle of every thing; He appears to take some care of human affairs. But, in all the universe, He can look upon nothing but Himself; the sight of crime and of disorder would defile his eyes : He could not know how to be the author either of the prosperity of the wicked, or of the misery of the good. His superintendence is like that of the master of a family, who has established a certain order of things in his household, and takes care that the end which he has in view be accomplished, but shuts his eyes to their divisions and their vices, and only takes care to obviate the consequences of them. He stamped the impress of his will upon the universe, when first he projected it like a ball from his hand ; and it is by a general, not minute, superintendence, that he sustains it. The perpetuation of the several species of beings is his grand object :

which he secured by his one first impulse.'* — Has Luther calumniated this philosopher? Yet was this heathen teacher made the great model for instruction to the christian church, both as to form and substance, for many ages. During the second period of the reign of the schoolmen, which began early in the thirteenth century, his reputation was at its height : the most renowned doctors wrote elaborate commentaries upon his works. The predominance of his philosophy — c a philosophy, which knew nothing of original sin and native depravity ; which allowed nothing to be criminal, but certain external flagitious actions 5 and which was unacquainted with any righteousness of grace, imputed to a sinner' — was itself a corruption, and the fruitful source of other corruptions, which cried aloud for reformation, and which the reformers of the sixteenth century exposed and suppressed. (See Aliln. Eccles. Hist. vol. iv. p. 283.)

s Correptione.~\ The word has occurred several times before, and I have rendered it by ' correction,' ( chastening/ ( severity.' It properly denotes s the snatching of a substance hastily up,' and is applied sometimes to the seizure of the body by disease. Hence, it is transferred to a figurative ' cutting short.' " At that time the Lord began to cut Israel short" (2 Kings x. c23.) ; and so, to c reprehension, chiding and chastisement ' in general. * I am indebted to the Abbe Bartbelemi's Anacharsis for this concise but eloquent view of Aristotle's Theology, vol. v. chap, lxiv. part IV. so, she judges even of God, that he in some, sort snores away ; and, having nothing to do with the exercise of wisdom, will and present power1 in electing, separating and inspiring, has committed to men this busy and troublesome work of accepting and rejecting his forbearance and his wrath. This is what we come to, whilst coveting to mete out, and excuse God, by the counsel of human reason; whilst, instead of reverencing the secrets of His Majesty, we break in to scrutinize them — overwhelmed with his glory, instead of uttering one single plea in excuse for him, we vomit forth a thousand blasphemies ! We forget our ownselves also the mean while, and chatter, like mad people, both against God and against ourselves, in the same breath; though our design is to speak with great wisdom, both for God and for ourselves.

You see here, in the first place, what this trope and gloss of Diatribe's makes of God : but do you not also see, how vastly consistent she is with herself in it ? She had before made Freewill equal and alike in all, by including all in one definition; but now, in the course of her disputation, she forgets her own definition, and makes a cultivated Freewill one, and an uncultivated Freewill another; setting out a diversity of Freewills, according to the diversity of works, habits, and characters; one that can do good, another that cannot do good : and this, by its own powers, before grace received; by which powers of its own, she had laid it down in her definition, that Freewill could not of itself will any thing good. Thus it comes to pass, that, if we will not leave to the sole will of God both the will and the power to harden, and to shew mercy, and to do every thing; we must ascribe to Freewill herself the power of doing every thing, without grace : although we have denied that it can do any thing good without grace.

* Sap. vol. pmsentid elig. discern, inspir, omissd. The simile of the sun and rain, then, is of no sec.ix.; force as to this point. A Christian will use that simile with far greater propriety, considering the Gospel to be that sim and rain (as Ps. xix. and Heb. vi. do) ; the cultivated ground, the elect; the uncultivated, the reprobate. The former of these are edified and made better by the word; the latter are oifended and made worse: whereas Freewill, when left to herself, is in all men the uncultivated ground; yea, the kingdom of Satan. Let us also look into her reasons for imagining Erasmus's this trope in this place. It seems absurd, says J^troT* Diatribe, that God, who is not only just but also dzingcongood, should be said to have hardened a man's aideied» heart in order to manifest his own power by the man's wickedness. So she runs back to Origen ; who confesses, that God gave occasion to the induration, but flings back the blame upon Pharaoh. Origen has, besides, remarked that the Lord said, ic For this cause have I raised thee up :" He does not say, ' for this cause have I made thee.9 No : for Pharaoh would not have been wicked, if he had been such as God made him ; God having beheld all his works, and they were very good. So much for Diatribe.

Absurdity, then, is one of the principal reasons Absurdity for not understanding Moses's and Paul's words £°.tasutin their simple and literal sense. But what ar- son. tide of faith is violated by this absurdity, and who is offended by it ? Human reason is offended: and she forsooth, who is blind, deaf, foolish, impious and sacrilegious in her dealings with all the words and works of God, is brought in here to be the judge of God's works and words. Upon the same principle, you will deny all the articles of the christian faith ; inasmuch as it is the most absurd thing possible, and, as Paul says, " to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles foolishness," that God should part IV. become man, the son of a virgin ; that he should 11 have been crucified ; that he should be sitting at the right hand of the Father. It is absurd, I say, to believe such things. Let as therefore invent some tropes like those of the Arians, to prevent Christ from being God absolutely? Let us invent some tropes like those of the Manicheans/ to prevent u Simpliciter, opposed to Jig uratiuehj. See Sect. iii. note 9. v The Manichees, so called from Manes their founder, arose in the reign of the Emperor Probus, a. d. 277- ' Like most of the ancient heretics, they abounded in senseless whims, not worthy of any solicitous explanation.

This they had in common with the Pagan philosophers, that they supposed the Supreme Being to be material, and to penetrate all nature. Their grand peculiarity was to admit of two independent principles, a good and an evil one, in order to solve the arduous question concerning the origin of evil. Like all heretics, they made a great parade of seeking truth with liberal impartiality, and were thus qualified to deceive unwary spirits, who, far from suspecting their own imbecility of judgment, and regardless of the word of God and hearty prayer, have no idea of attaining religious knowledge by any other method than by natural reason.' ' Like air other heretics they could not stand before the Scriptures. They professedly rejected the Old Testament, as belonging to the malignant principle ; and, when they were pressed with the authority of the New, as corroborating the Old, they pretended the New was adulterated. — Is there any new thing under the sun ? Did not Lord Bolingbroke set up the authority of St. John against St. Paul ? Have we not heard of some parts of the Gospel as not genuine, because they suit not Socinian views ? Genuine christian principles alone will bear the test, nor fear the scrutiny of the whole word of God.' — Augustine, who lived about a century after they had first arisen, describes them to the life ; after having himself smarted under the poison of their arrows, for about twelve years :

seduced partly by their subtile and captious questions concerning the origin of evil, partly by their blasphemies against the Old Testament saints. — With respect to the person of Christ, their heresy was like that of the Gnostics, or Docetae : worthy children of Simon Magus ! They held that the Lord Jesus Christ, had no proper humanity ; the mere phantasm of a man having glided, as Luther here describes it, through the virgin's womb, and afterwards expired upon the cross. — ' Yet though my ideas were material, says Augustine, I could not bear to think of God being flesh. That was too gross and low in my apprehensions. Thy only begotten son appeared to me as the most lucid part of thee, afforded for our salvation. I concluded that such a

his being a real man ; and let us make him out to SECT.ix. be a sort of phantom, which glided through the virgin (like a ray of the sun through a piece of glass), and was crucified. A nice way of handling Scripture ! And yet these tropes get us no forwarder, and Does not do not serve to evade the absurdity : for it still SSSSJj?" remains absurd in the eye of reason that this just and good God should demand impossibilities of Freewill ; and when Freewill cannot will good, but by necessity serves sin, should nevertheless impute it to her ; and so long as he withholds the Spirit, should not be a whit more kind, or more merciful, than if he were to harden or permit men to be hardened. Reason will be again and again repeating, that these are not the acts of a kind and merciful God. These things so far exceed her apprehension, and she so wants power to take even her own self captive, that she cannot believe God to be good if he should act and judge so; but setting faith aside, demands that she should be able to touch and see and comprehend how it is that He is just and not cruel. Now she would have this sort of comprehension if it were said of God, c he hardens nobody, he damns nobody ; on the contrary, he pities every body, he saves everybody/ so as that hell should be destroyed, and the fear of death removed, and no future punishment dreaded.

Hence it is, that she becomes so boisterous and so vehement x in exnature could not be born of the Virgin Mary, without partaking of human flesh, which I thought must pollute it. Hence arose my fantastic ideas of Jesus, so destructive of all piety. Thy spiritual children may smile at me with charitable sympathy, if they read these my confessions ; such however were my views.' — Milner in Augustine's Confessions, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. pp. 314—327.

x Mstuat et contendit.'] Mst. denoting violent heat in general, is especially applied to the boiling and swelling of the sea, when it ebbs and flows, or rises in surges and waves. Contend, expresses the full stretch of every nerve and muscle in close conflict. part IV. cusing and defending the just and beneficent God. ' Faith and the Spirit, however, judge differently; they believe God to be good, although he should destroy all men. And of what use is it, that we are wearied to death with these elaborate speculations that we may be enabled to remove the blame of induration from God to Freewill. Let Freewill do what she can, with all her means y and all her might in exercise, she will never furnish an example of avoiding to be hardened where God has not given his Spirit, or of earning mercy where she has been left to her own powers. For, what is the difference whether she be hardened or deserve to be hardened ; since hardening is necessarily in her, so long as that impotency, by which, according to Diatribe herself, she cannot will good, is in her. Since the absurdity then is not removed by these tropes, or, if removed, is removed but to make way for greater absurdities, and to ascribe all power to Freewill ; away with these useless and misleading tropes, and let us stick to the pure and simple word of God. sect. x. < The other principal reason why this trope

should be received is, that the things which God ratde aiT* W&h made are very good : and God does not things very say, I have made thee for this very thing, but for good not a this very thing I have raised thee up/ reason. First I answer, that this was said before the fall of man, when the things which God had made were very good. But it follows presently, in the third chapter, how man was made evil, deserted of God and left to himself. From this man, so corrupted, all men are born, and born y Toto mundo totisque viribus.~\ Mundus is properly e the stuff of the world' — the materials of which it is constituted — and is transferred ihence to all kinds of furniture and provision— specially to ' women's dress and ornaments:' ' instrumentum ornatus muliebris.' I would not be sure that Luther has not some allusion to ' Madam Diatribe's ' adornments here. wicked ; Pharoah amongst the rest. As Paul SECT. X. says, " We were all by nature the children of wrath, even as others." God therefore did make Pharaoh wicked ; that is, out of a wicked and corrupted seed. As he says in the Proverbs of Solomon, " The Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked man for the day of evil" (not indeed by creating wickedness in him, but by forming him out of an evil seed and ruling him.) It is not a just conclusion therefore, * God formed the wicked man, therefore he is not wicked/ For how can it be that he is not wicked, springing as he does from a wicked seed ?

As he says in Psalm li. " Behold I was conceived in sins." And Job says, " Who can make clean that which has been conceived of unclean seed?" For although God does not make sin, still he ceases not to form and to multiply a nature which has been corrupted by sin, through the withdrawal of the Spirit: just as if a carpenter should make statues of rotten wood. Thus men are made just such as their nature is, through God's creating and forming them of that nature.2

z Luther has not exactly hit the nail upon the head here. He declares that God makes ' wicked man;' and that he so makes him, through the faultiness of the materials which he has to work with, being fitly compared to c a carpenter who should make statues of rotten wood.' Moreover, this faultiness of the materials arose from the sin of the first man- who was created having the Spirit, what he elsewhere calls c the firstfruits of the Spirit,' (Part hi. Sect, xviii.) which he lost by his sin and fall -, being thenceforth deserted of God, and left to himself. — I deem both these propositions objectionable and false. Neither doth God make sinners ; neither did he withdraw the Spirit from Adam by reason of his sin, and so, through him, from the race which has sprung from him ; for he never had it. — When God created man in his own image, he created every man. The substance of every individual man and woman which exists, hath existed, and shall exist till the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised, was enclosed in the first man, Adam. No ne0 matter of human kind has been brought into existence since that moment 5 no human being has been created thero-

part iv. Secondly I answer, if you will have those words, " were very good/' to be understood of fore, posterior to it. (See Locke's Essay, book ii. chap. xxvi. sect. 2.) Nor was this creation the mere production of a mass of human substance, like so much clay in the hands of a potter which was afterwards to be moulded into distinct vessels. Distinctness and individuality of subsistence was given to the several individuals of the human race in that instant. This appears, as well from other considerations which might be stated, as from these eminently ; 1 . Man is spoken of, and spoken to, as plural. (" Let them have dominion." " Male and female created he them." " God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be ye fruitful and multiply." " And called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.") 2. God is declared to have created them male and female : a fact which the Lord Jesus refers to (Matt. xix. 4, 5. Mark x. 6.), as indicative of his Father's will concerning marriage. (It is clearly not the formation of Eve to which he refers, but that act of creation which distinctly preceded the making of the help-meet.) 3. God is said to have chosen his people to be in Christ before the foundation of the world ; which implies that the whole race was contemplated as personally and individually subsistent, in a state prior to the exercise of that choice.

— Having thus given a distinct personal subsistence to every individual of the human race in Adam, when the Lord God added the procreative power, and gave command to exercise it ; essentially he did make every individual : the substance about to come forth, in the Lord's time, into manifest existence and distinct personal agency, was already formed • the power and the authority which would be necessary to its production, were superadded. Then, if this was God's ' condidit' (Luther's term — ' made,' < formed,' 'builded'), hath He made ' wicked man?' Is not that saying of the Preacher hereby, and hereby only, shewn to be true, u God hath made man upright?" (Eccles. vii. 29.) — The only consideration, which can have^my shew of involving God in the propagation of the wicked, is, that he did not at once destroy the offender, and those who had offended in him. But, without here suggesting counsel and design (we are dealing with facts) , the living substances were formed ; the power and the authority for production had been given -, a curse was upon them, which they must be brought out into manifest existence that they might be seen and known to bear. — I cannot but remark, that these, or some such reasons, which arise out of the reality of their previous distinct subsistence, seem absolutely necessary to the vindication of God from the charge of propagating sin. — If it be asked then, but how could those who had no eye to see, no ear to hear, no hand to put forth, commit an act of disobedience ? The answer is, Adam was the sole personal agent (" By one man sin entered into the world/'

the' works of God after the fell, you will observe sect. x. they are spoken not of us, but of God. He does ' " by one mans offence death reigned by one ;!' ek by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation") ; but every individual of the race was enclosed in, and was part of his substance, so that he could not do any thing in which any one of them was not one with him. — My head offendeth j but where is my hand and my foot, in the' transgression and in its punishment ? — That this is the Scripture view of the fall — ( one personal agent j but every human being partaker with him in the offence' — is decisively shewn from Romans v. 12. Whether e0' to be rendered in whom, (" through him in whom all sinned"— which I greatly prefer), or for that : the words which follow make it plain, that c all men ' are dealt with — or rather, all men, from Adam to Moses, were dealt with — on the ground of the first transgression. — I have no other clue to my own character ; I have no other clue to my own state. Nor can I otherwise explain what is thus made clear in the spirit and behaviour of other men. — And does not the church of England recognise this account of the matter in her baptismal service, when she prays that the infant ' may receive remission of his sins by spiritual regeneration-' and afterwards instructs the priest to speak to the god-fathers and god-mothers in this wise ;

' Ye have prayed that our Lord Jesus Christ would vouchsafe to release him of his sins.' What sins r — This is the reality of ( original sin 5' whence flowed c original guilt 5' whence flowed c depravation of nature,' so commonly mistaken for it. This alone constitutes every son and daughter of fallen Adam a fallen creature 3 not merely child of the fallen, but themselves, individually and personally, fallen from their own original uprightness, in him. — I have hinted that this is not the place to speak of counsel and design ; with which all this was done : but it is obvious that hereby a way was made for that further and more complete developement of God (by the assumption of new relations), which could not be made by simple creation, but to which creation was the stepping-stone. (See Part hi. Sect, xxviii. notes * and v.)

Luther is again in mistake (see Part hi. Sect, xviii. note fc) about the creation state of man ■ speaking as though the possession of the Spirit were a part of his endowments. — ' Deser- tus a Deo ac sibi relictus' e naturam peccato, subtract© spiritu, vitiatam.'— The Lord God having formed his animal structure out of the dust of the ground — a compound mass — ■ breathed into his nostrils breath of <c lifes," and man became a living soul. This continuity of soul and body — simple soul, and compounded body — soul, which was an image of Him that is a Spirit 5 and body, in which he resembled and was partaker with the brutes — constituted his essential nature $ the solution of which continuity constitutes death. So constituted. part IV. not say, man saw the things which God had made, and they were very good. Many things he had capacities with which to learn, and sources of instruction from which to derive much knowledge of God. The Lord God conversed with him face to face, and he dwelt amongst the teaching creatures of His hand ; even as he was himself the most teaching of all creatures. But where is the Spirit ? meaning the Holy Ghost. Had he possessed this — had the Spirit dwelt and walked in Him — that is, been continually present with Him, acting in Him and by Him — he had possessed union with God :

a privilege which was not essential to his condition and relation as the moral creature of God, but which might, or might not, be added to it. That it was not added is plain, as from other considerations, so from this ; that if it was added, then it was either conquered in the temptation, or withdrawn previous to it : I know not what a conquered Holy Ghost can mean; and if withdrawn prior to the temptation, its withdrawal would constitute him a different creature from that to which the temptation law had been given.* — But now, being simply a creature, and therefore mutable, he was liable to fall by temptation. Accountability implies account to be rendered 5 account implies trial ; trial implies the presence of that in the tried substance which may be turned to evil. Was not this precisely Adam's state and constitution ? '. Good,' ' very good,' as he came out of the hands of his Creator, his good might be made evil. Those appetites and passions, the appendages of his will ; which, in his creation, and until evil was suggested from without, were pure, fixed on fit objects, and acted in purity ; were liable to be turned to other objects, and thus to become evil. Desire of knowledge, desire of pleasant food, taking pleasure in Avhat is beautiful to the eye — all of which were sound and pure in creation — might thus, by suggestions thrown in, become evil : as infectious fever, or the serpent's bite, poisons healthful blood. If no evil were suggested, there would continue only good ; the suggestion, by being entertained, mars them. — Then, was God debtor to Adam, to withhold temptation from him 3 or to minister super-

* Luther's misapprehension has much to do with a mistake about the Spirit's actings. He seems to have thought, as many now do, that there might be a sort of ' fast and loose' playings of the Spirit. The Spirit, when given, acts in earnest and efficaciously. — Would Luther say, ' does he always act efficaciously in. the Lord's called people, now/' I answer, the cases are not parallel. We have the Spirit not as our own, and in our Adam selves, but in Christ. When we fall, it is not ' the Spirit conquered,' but the Spirit not energizing : what could not have happened to Adam. — Luther's expressions are ambiguous as to the period when the Spirit was withdrawn ; whether before, or after the temptation. In a former note (Part iii. Sect, xviii. note t) I have dealt with him as representing it to have been withdrawn before the temptation. A careful comparison of the several passages in which he refers to it leads me to conclude, that he supposed it not withdrawn till after the sin had been committed. seem very good to God, and are so; which to us SECT.xi. appear very bad, and are so. Thus afflictions, calamities, errors, hell, nay all the best works of God, are, in the sight of the world, very bad and damnable. What is better than Christ and the Gospel ? but what more hateful to the world ? How those things then shall be good in the sight of God, which are evil in our eyes, is a mystery known to God only, and to those who see with God's eyes ; that is, who have the Spirit. But there is no need of so subtile a strain of argumentation just yet.a The former answer is sufficient for the present.

It is asked perhaps, how God can be said to How God work evil in us ■ as for example, to harden, to ^°uSsCon, give men up to their lusts, to tempt, and the sidered. like ? We ought, forsooth, to be contented with the words of God, and simply b to believe what they affirm ; since the works of G od quite surpass all description. But, by way of humouring reason, which is another name for human folly, I am content to be silly and foolish, and to try if I can at all move her by turning babbler.0 In the first place, even reason and Diatribe concede that God worketh all things in all things ; and that nothing is effected, or is efficacious without him. He is omnipotent; and this appertained to his oinnipotency, as Paul says to the creation aid, fortified as he was by creation endowments, to keep him from falling ; or to heal his wounds, and restore soundness and peace to him, when as he had freely fallen ? a Tarn acutd disputatione.~\ A sharp, keen, refined distinction : something like what is ascribed to the " word of God" (Heb. iv. 12.) " piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow." Disp. ( the act of disputing,' or ( the debate held.'

b Simpliciter credere. ,] ' Simply,' as opposed to arguments and investigations. Faith receives implicitly what God explicitly declares. c Balbatiendo .] Properly, to f lisp, stammer, or stutter.' There seems to be some allusion to 2 Cor. xi. " Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly : and indeed bear with me." u I speak as a fool." (( I speak foolishly," part iv. Ephesians.d Satan then and man having fallen from God, and being deserted by him, cannot will good ; that is, cannot will those things which please God, or which God wills. They are turned perpetually towards their own desires, so that they cannot but seek what is their own, and not his.0 This will and nature of theirs therefore, which is thus averse from God, still remains a something. Satan and the wicked man are not a nothing, having no nature or will, though they have a nature which is corrupt and averse from God. This remainder of nature, therefore, in the wicked man and in Satan, of which we speak, seeing it is the creature and work of God, is not less subject to omnipotency and to divine actings, than all the other creatures and works of God.

Since then God moves and actuates all things in all things, it cannot be but that he also moves and acts in Satan and in the wicked. But he acts in them according to what they are, and what he finds them ; that is, since they are averse from him and wicked, and are hurried along by this impulse of the divine omnipotency, they do only such things as are averse from him and wicked. Just as a horseman, driving a horse which is lame in one or two of his feet, drives him according to his make and power ; and so the horse goes ill. But what can the horseman do? he drives the horse such as he is in a drove of sound horses ; he makes him go ill, the others well ; f it cannot be otherwise, unless the horse be cured. By this illustration you see how it is, that, when God works in bad men and by bad men, evil is the result; but it cannot be that God cloeth wickedly, although he works evil by the agency of evil d Ephes. i. 2. e Self is their idol, to the dethronement of God. Their own interests and gratification, not God's, are sought. Philip, ii. 9,1'.

f Illo male, isiis bene.'] More literally, c he does well with, and he does ill with.' Agit cum must be understood. men, because lie, being good himself, cannot do sect.xi'. wickedly ; g but still he uses evil instruments — — — a which cannot escape the seizure and impulse of his power. The fault therefore is in the instruments, which God does not suffer to remain idle, that evil is done; God, meanwhile, himself being the impeller of them. Just as if a carpenter should cut ill by cutting with an axe that is c toothed and sawed/ Hence it arises, that the wicked man cannot but go astray and commit sin continually ; inasmuch as being seized and urged by the power of God, he is not allowed to remain idle; but wills, desires, acts, just according to what he is.h s This is very much like saying ' doeth good because he is good, and is good because he is good.'— It is too much like the * ipse dixit' of the Pythagoreans. h The amount of Luther's explanation of the mystery of God's agency in the wicked, as given in his folly, is, 1 . That they are still real existences. 2. Still God's creatures. 3. That he works all things in them, even as he does in all his creatures. 4. That he works in them according to their nature : that hence he does all their evil in them, but does no evil himself.

All this is true ; but it is baldly told, and wants opening, confirmation, and some additions. He ought to shew us how man came to be what he is, in consistency with God's voluntarily contracted obligations to him ; he ought to shew us the nature and manner of his agency in the wicked ; he ought to shew us how God, in consistency with himself, ordained and wrought the fall, and continues wicked man in being ; yea, works wickedness by him, instead of destroying him and putting an end to the reign of evil. — I say, he ought to have shewn these things ; because, though he talks of * silliness' and ' foolishness,' and ' babbling,'* it is plain that he means a serious and sober solution of the difficulty. — Then, with respect to the first of these shewings, man, as we have seen in a former note,f had a constitution imparted, and a state assigned to him, in which trial was implied, and in which he ought to have overcome temptation. There was no dereliction of the Creator's engagements, no withdrawal of any possession or privilege, no gainsaying discession or addition, with respect to God's previous announcements, either in the operation of the fall, or in the inflictions Which followed it. The mutability of the creature, as simple creature — the accountability of moral creature — and the distinct source (not creation^ but super-

* Libet ineptire, stultescere, et balbutiendo tentare. t See aboye^ Sect. x. note z. part IV. These are sure and settled verities, if we, in the first place, believe that God is omnipotent; — — creation) of the Spirit's within energizings — unveil a just God ; How God that is, one who leaves nothing undone which he had freely hardens. bound himself to do, and does nothing which he ought not to do. — Then, with respect to the second of these shewings, Luther compares God's agency in the wicked to a drover driving on a lame horse (he means it not irreverently) ; which excites the idea of physical rather than moral influence : but the truth is, God acts in the wicked as in the righteous, by setting, or causing to be set, such considerations before the will, as constrain it to choose his will. This is moral necessity; such a will so addressed cannot choose differently. — Then, with respect to the third of these shewings, God's most gracious and everlasting design of making himself known to, and enjoyed by, certain creatures of his hands, according to what He really is, affords the ample and adequate reason for all that complex, yet simple, system of operation, by which he has been dealing with man from the creation to this hour, and shall continue to and throughout eternity to deal with him : — with man, his great manifester, not only in the blessed human person of the Lord Jesus Christ (see Part ii.

Sect. viii. note r), but also in every individual substance of the whole human race; which is made to manifest itself, that he may manifest himself by his doings with it. — A sight like this justifies wisdom to her children : and, although these considerations may seem to apply themselves exclusively to God's dealings with the wicked 5 or at farthest, with men -, they will require but little extension, to comprehend all creatures. Evil has been introduced into the creation of God, and is not destroyed, but continues therein, and shall so continue, unto God's glory : because he could not be manifested as what he is — the union and concentration of all moral excellency — the truth, the love, the power, the wisdom — the good one — without it. — And what is this * evil,' which has thus come into, and thus abides in God's world ? a person — as we are apt to account it, having scriptural authority for so speaking of it ; but thinking so of it, too often to our hurt ? — Hear what a venerable confessor of the Church has to say about it.* ' I now began to understand, that every creature of thine hand is in its nature good, and that universal nature is justly called on to praise the Lord for his goodness. (Psalm cxlviii.) The evil which I sought after has no positive existence ; were it a substance, it would be good, because every thing individually, as well as all things collectively, is good. Evil appeared to be a want of agreement in some parts to others. My opinion of the two independent principles, in order to account for the origin of evil, was without foundation.! Evil

* Augustine's Confessions, in Miln. Eccl, Hist. vol. ii. p. 342. f See above, Sect. ix. note v, and, in the second, that the wicked man is the SEC. xii. creature of God, but being- averse from him, and ' left to himself, without the Spirit of God, cannot will or do good. God's omnipotence causes that the wicked man cannot escape the moving and driving of God; but, being necessarily subjected to God, he obeys him. Still his corruption, or aversation from Gocl, causes that he cannot be is not a thing to be created ; let good things only forsake their just place, office and order, and then, though all be good in their nature, evil, which is only a privative, abounds and produces positive misery. I asked what was iniquity, and I found it to be no substance, but a perversity of the will, which declines from thee, the supreme substance, to lower things, and casts away its internal excellencies, and swells with pride externally.' — If it be true then, that the creature, as creature, is essentially mutable (what Augustine, and the schoolmen after him, applies to the now corrupted state of the human will* being equally applicable to the will of man — to the will of every moral creature — in its essence ; viz. that it is vertible) ; if there subsist what may fitly be compared to a chord in every moral

creature, which may be so touched as to yield a jarring note, and by its vibration to produce discord throughout the whole instrument j if this chord, which is not in itself evil, may be so touched by that which is not evil neither, but good (is not self-love such a chord, and is not the sense of God's incomparable excellency, or the intimation of superiority in some other like creature of God's, or the suggestion of some flaw, blemish, or deficiency in the creature itself — each of which ought only to excite humility, submission, and gratitude — such a touch ?) j can we have any difficulty in conceiving how Satan was withdrawn from his uprightness, when as he was yet only good, and nothing but good was to be heard and seen around him ?

— I am not ignorant that some would divert us altogether from contemplations of this kind : but why are we told so much about the devil, if we are to have no thoughts about his history and origin ? We are taught that ' pride was his condemnation' (1 Tim. hi. 6.) ; <( that he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth" (John viii. 44.) -, te that he kept not his first estate, but left his own habitation" (Jude 6.) ; (i that there was war in heaven." (Rev. xii. 7-t) Who shall be ashamed to meditate and explore what God hath revealed unto his own justification (Rom. iii. 4.) and to our furtherance and joy of faith ? (Phil. i. 25.)

* See Part iii. Sect. i. t lam aware, that these words are in their connection to be understood prophetically ; but there was a foundation for the allusion. part IV. moved and dragged along, according to good. ■ God cannot relinquish the exercise of his omni- potency because of the wicked man's aversation ; neither can the wicked man change his aversation into good will. Thus it comes to pass, that he of necessity errs and sins perpetually, until he he rectified by the Spirit of God. Howbeit, in all these Satan as yet reigns in peace and keeps his palace in quietness, in subordination to this impulse of the divine omnipotency. After this follows the business of hardening; which is in this wise. The wicked man, as I have said (and the same is true of Satan his prince also), is occupied altogether with himself and his own matters ; he does not inquire after God, nor care for those things which are God's \ but seeks his own wealth, his own glory, his own works, his own wisdom, his own power ; a kingdom, in short, of his own ; and what he wants is to enjoy these things in peace. Now, if any one resist him, or have a mind to diminish ought from these possessions, his aversion, indignation, and rage with which he is stirred up against his adversary, are not less vehement than his desire with which he pursues after these possessions : and he is just as incapable of restraining his rage as he is of restraining his desire and pursuit; and just as incapable of restraining his desire as of putting an end to his existence : of which he is incapable, inasmuch as he is the creature of God, though a vitiated one.

This is the history of that rage of the world against God's Gospel. That stronger than he, which is to conquer the quiet possessor of the palace, comes by the Gospel ; condemning those desires of glory and riches, and of his own wisdom and righteousness ; in short, every thing in which he confides. This same provoking of the wicked, which is effected by God's saying or doing something contrary to their wishes, is the hardening and burdening of them. For, whereas they are averse of themselves through the very corrup- sec.xiii. tion of their nature, they are also turned yet more ~ out of the way, and made worse, by being resisted and robbed, under their averseness. Thus, when God was proceeding to snatch his usurped dominion out of the hands of the wicked Pharaoh, he provoked him, and did yet more harden and weigh down his heart by assailing him with the words of Moses, who threatened to take away his kingdom, and to withdraw the people from his dominion : meanwhile, he gave him not the Spirit within, but allowed his own wicked and corrupt nature, in wkieh Satan was reigning, to grow red hot, to boil over, to rage and get to its height, accompanied with a sort of vain confidence and contemptuousness.

Let not any one think therefore, that God, Mistakes when he is said to harden, or to work evil in us Prohlblted« (for to harden is to make evil), does so by creating evil as it were anew in us: just as you might fancy a malignant vintner, full of mischief himself, whilst none is in his vessel, to pour or mix poison into or with the same ; the vessel all the while doing nothing itself, save that it receives or endures the malignancy of the mixer. For when they hear it said, that God works both good and evil in us, and that we are subjected to the operations of God by a mere passive necessitj^ ; many seem to fancy, that man, a good sort of creature, or at least not a bad one, is, in some such way as this, made the subject of a bad work of God's. These persons do not sufficiently consider what a restless sort of actor God is, in all his creatures, and how he suffers none of them to have a holyda}r. But let him who would have any understanding about such sayings settle it thus with himself; that God works evil in us ,

(that is, by us), not through any fault of his, but through our own faultiness : we being by nature evil, and God good, he hurries us along by means part IV. of his own agency (such is the nature of his omnipotency), and, good as he is in himself, cannot do otherwise than work evil by an evil instrument; which he makes a good use of however (such is his wisdom), by turning it to his own glory and our salvation.1 In like manner, he finds the will of Satan evil without creating it so; what has become such, through God's deserting of him and Satan's sinning ; and finding it so, he lays hold of it in the course of his operations, and moves it whithersoever he will : yet this will does not cease to be evil, because God thus moves it. Just so, David says of Shimei (2 Sam. xvi. 10.), " Let him curse, for God hath commanded him to curse David." — How does God command him to curse ? such a malignant and wicked act ! There was no external commandment of this kind to be found any where. David then has regard to this consideration, that the omnipotent God speaks, and it is done ; that is, he doeth all things by his eternal word. So then, the divine agency and omni potency seizes hold of the will of Shimei, together with all his members — that will which was already evil, and which had aforetime been inflamed against David;

who met him just at the right moment, as having deserved such a cursing — and even the good God commands (that is, he speaks the word and it is done) this curse, which is poured out by a wicked and blasphemous organ, inasmuch as he seizes hold of that organ, and carries it along with him in the course of his own agency. SEC. xiv. Thus he hardens Pharaoh, when he presents his

fc ■ words and works to his wicked and evil will ; Pharaoh's whicn that will hates, through innate faultiness, case con si- 7 ° ' 1 The wheels of God's omnipotent providence (see Ezek. i. 15 — 21.) carry the evil as well as the good along with them in their goings : and this unto God's glory j but is it unto salvation also 1 — This is Luther's defective view. no doubt, and natural corruption. Now, when sec.xiv. God does not change this will inwardly by his Spirit, but persists in presenting and obtruding his words and works; and when Pharaoh, on the other hand, considering his strength, wealth and power, confides in them, through the same natural pravity; it comes to pass, that, being puffed up and exalted by his own fancied greatness, on the one hand, and being rendered a proud despiser by the meanness as well of Moses as of the word of God which comes to him in an abject form, on the other; he is first hardened, and then more and more provoked and aggravated, the more Moses urges and threatens him. This evil will of his, however, would not of itself be stirred up to action, or hardened ; but since the omnipotent actor drives it along as he does the rest of his creatures, by an inevitable impulse, will it must. Add to this, that He at the same time presents from without that which naturally irritates and offends it;

so that Pharaoh cannot avoid being hardened any more than he can avoid the agency of the divine omnipotence, and the aversation or malignancy of his own will. So that Pharaoh's hardening by God is completed thus; he sets before his maliciousness that which he of his own nature hates from without; after this he ceases not to stimulate that evil will, just such as he finds it, by his own omnipotent impulse within. The man meanwhile, such being the wickedness of his will, cannot but hate what is contrary to himself, and confide in his own strength. Thus he is made obstinate to such a degree, that he neither hears nor has any understanding, but is hurried away under the possession of the devil, like one mad and raving.k

k Luther's account of ' hardening' is, 1. God actuates the wicked as well as the rest of his creatures, according to their nature. <2. Satan is in them unresisted and undisturbed. 3. They can only will evil. 4. God thwarts them by word, or part iv. If this view of the case be satisfactory, I have gained my cause ; we agree to explode tropes and or deed, or both. All this is correct ; but it is not the whole of the matter ; neither does he put the several parts of the machinery together, cleverly ; neither does he shew an end. (See above, Sect. xi. note h. All these things are of God, through God, and to God. (Rom. xi. 36.) The natural man has been brought into the state in which he is, of, through, and to him. And what is that state ? earthly, sensual, devilish soul (James iii. 1.6.), possessed by the devil; to whom it was given up, as a prey, in the day of apostasy. Luther distinguishes the ' moving and driving,' or e seizing and moving,' of God, from his ( word and work.' It is a fine image which he draws of God giving motion to ' all creature.' But if this idea be examined, it will be found to amount to no more than that God keeps all his creatures in a state of being which is accordant to their nature ;

and that the wicked therefore are, by the necessity of their nature, kept by him in a state of activity, and not allowed to be torpid, or, as Luther facetiously expresses it, ' to have a holyday.' Particular actings of God, then, upon this substance of the human soul, such and so related, are what he expresses by God's ' thwarting word and work:' but this thwarting word and work extends only to the outside of the man ;foris offert — foris objicit. All this while, Satan's is an agency with which, as it respects others, God does not interfere : he is no agent, no minister of His. Y6u might almost judge from his language in some places (contradicted it is true by others), that he accounted Satan a sort of independent chief. — Now here, if I mistake not, the root of the matter lies. Satan is an agent and minister of God. (See Job i. 11. 1 Kings xxii. 19 — 23. 1 Chron. xxi. 1. Compare 2 Sam. xxiv. 1. Zech. iii. 1 — 3.) Nor can I understand the expressions so repeatedly applied to the case of Pharaoh, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart;" nor "Whom he will he hardeneth;" nor " God hath given them the spirit of slumber;" nor "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent;" and the like — without recurring to this agency : which obviously meets their full and express import, whilst nothing else, or less, does.

— And what is the effect of this agency but such as hath been already ascribed to the operation of God ? (see note h, as before) hereby * He sets, or causes to be set, such considerations (it might be added, and causes such to be withheld — for Satan throws dust into men's eyes ; hinders them from seeing, as well as causes them to see wrongly) before the mind of His free-agent, as morally constrain him to choose what He hath willed. — 0 what is there that can give peace under the realizing consciousness of his being and agency, but the assurance that he is in truth only this agent of God for good, and nothing but good, to his chosen ? — God's hardening> therefore, I define generally to be ( that special opera-

the glosses of men, and to understand the words sec.xiv. of God literally, that it may not be necessary to make excuses for God, or accuse him of injustice. When he says, I will harden Pharaoh's heart, he speaks in plain language, as if he should say, I will cause that the heart of Pharaoh shall be hardened; or, that it shall be hardened through my doings and workings. How this is effected, we have heard : it shall be by my exciting his own evil will inwardly by that general sort of impulse by which I move all things, so that he shall go on under his own bias, and in his own course of willing ; nor will I cease to stimulate him, nor can I do otherwise. I will at the same time present him with a word and a work, which that evil bias of his will fall foul of; since he can do nothing else but choose ill, whilst I stimulate the very substance of the evil which is in him, by virtue of my omnipotency. Thus was God most sure, and thus did he with the greatest certainty pronounce, that Pharaoh should be hardened, as being most sure, that Pharaoh's will could neither resist the excitement of his omnipotency, nor lay aside its own maliciousness, nor receive Moses as a friend when presenting himself to him as an adversary * but that his will would remain evil, and he would necessarily become worse, harder and prouder, whilst,

tion of God upon the reprobate soul, by which, through the agency of Satan (whose Lord and rider he is), combined with his own outward dispensations of word and work, he shuts and seals it up in its own native blindness, aversation and enmity towards himself.' There have been however, and doubtless are, certain special and splendid exemplifications of this operation, each having its minuter peculiarities, whilst the same essential nature pervades all. — Pharaoh is one of these. — Indeed the whole history of the Exodus is one of the most luminous displays, which the Lord God hath ever made, of the design he is pursuing and accomplishing in having and dealing with creatures • second only to the marvellous and complicated history of the Lord's death : whereunto also it was appointed 5 whereunto also it hath been recorded. part iv. in pursuing his own natural bias and course, he — encountered an opposition which he did not like, and which he despised through a confidence in his own powers. Thus, you see it here confirmed even by this very assertion, that Freewill can do nothing but evil ; seeing that God, who neither is mistaken through ignorance, nor lies through wickedness, so confidently promises the hardening of Pharaoh's heart; being sure forsooth, that an evil will can will only evil, and, if a good which contravenes its own lust be proposed to it, can only be made worse thereby.1 sec. xv. It remains therefore, that a man may ask,

6 Why doth not God cease from that very stimu- imperti- ]ati0n of his omnipotency by which the wicked nent ques- f J J- . tionsmay man's will is stirred up to continue in its wickedstill be ness, and to wax worse?' I answer, ' This is to desire that God should cease to be God for the sake of the wicked, if you wish his power and agency to cease ; in fact, it is to desire that God should cease to be good, least they should be made worse/ — But why doth he not at the same time change those evil wills which he excites? This appertaineth to the secrets of his Majesty ; in which his judgments are incomprehensible. We have no business to ask this question; our business is to adore these mysteries : and if flesh and blood be offended here and murmur, let it murmur, pray : it will get no forwarder however ; God will not be changed for these murmurs. And what if ungodly men go away scandalized in great numbers ? The elect will remain notwithstanding. — The same answer shall be given to those who ask, c Why he allowed Adam to fall,

1 " Let my people go that they may serve me," is a good demand • but is directly contrary to Pharaoh's will, its course and propensity. (See the preceding note.) — Luther makes this act of God negative ; save, as respects God's general and particular operations in his providence. He does not change the will ; he keeps his moral creature in being j he thwarts his inclinations.— What is Satan, meanwhile ; and what does he ? and why he goes on to make all of us., who are sec.xvi. infected through the same sin; when he might ; have kept him from sinning; and might either have created us from another stock, or have purged the corrupted seed first?' He is God : whose will has no cause or reason™ which can be prescribed to it for rule and measure ; seeing it hath no equal or superior, but is itself the rule of all things. If it had any rule or measure, or cause or reason, it could not any longer be the will of God. For what he wills is not right, because he ought to will so, or ought to have willed so : on the contrary, because he wills so, therefore what is done must be right. Cause and reason are prescribed to the creature's will, but not to the Creator's; unless you would set another Creator over his head.n

By these considerations the trope-making Dia- The trope m Nulla est causa, nee ratio.'] Cau. is the correlative of effect ; ' what gives origin to this will :' rat. e the principle, rate, method, and design of its operations 5' which supposes some .extrinsic standard. There is no such source, or standard, for God's will : no cause which produces it j no Tightness which it exemplifies. n The defects of Luther's theology are strongly manifested in this paragraph. He has no ansAver to give, where a satisfactory one is at hand : God continues to move the wicked, because it is for his glory that they should go on to act, just such as they are. — For the same cause he ordained and brought about, or, as Luther speaks, permitted Adam's fall. — God does not create* wicked men. (See above, Sect. x. note z.) — God's will is cause and reason to itself: but he has a reason for all he does ; and this reason, so far as respects his actings with which we have to do, is resolvable into self-manifestation. (See former notes.) — As to these and such like questions, which Luther judges it improper to ask, the whole matter is, doth the word of God furnish an answer to them, or not ? If it does, we are bound to entertain them and supply the true

* Strange that he should use the word ' creare,' as applied to our generation from Adam. — ' When a thing is made up of particles which did all of them before exist, but that very thing, so constituted of preexisting particles, had not any existence before ; this, when referred to a substance produced in the ordinary course of nature by an internal principle, but set on work by and received from some external agent or cause, and working by insensible ways which we perceive not, we call generation.' — Locke's Essay, vol. i, chap, xxvi. sect. 2. part iv. tribe is sufficiently confuted, I think; but let us come to the text itself, that we may see what sort wlthPthed °f agreement there is between herself and her text. trope. It is customary with all those who elude arguments by tropes, to despise the text itself stoutly, and make it their only labour to pick out some one word, and torture it with tropes, and crucify it by the sense they impose upon it, without having the least regard to the surrounding context, or to the words which follow and precede, or to the author's scope or cause. Thus it is with Diatribe here : nothing heeding what Moses is about, or what is the aim of his discourse, she snatches this little word ' I will harden' (which offends her) out of the text, and fashions it after her own pleasure; not at all considering in the meanwhile, how it is to be brought back and inserted again into the text, and to be fitted in so as to square with the body of the text. This is just the reason, why Scripture is accounted not quite clear, by those most learned doctors who have had the greatest possible acceptance amongst men for so many ages. What wonder ? The sun himself could not shine if such tricks were played with him.°

But to omit what I have already shewn, that Pharaoh is not properly said to be hardened because he is endured by God with lenity, and not forthwith punished ; since he was chastened with so many plagues : if to endure through the divine lenity, and not straightway to punish, be called hardening, what need was there for God answer. How much better than to leave the caviller strong in his unanswered cavils ! And what is the result ? a known God instead of an unknown ; a God whom we revere., admire,, and delight in., when we should otherwise only tremble and shudder before him ! ° Artibus petitus.~\ Pet. ( made the subject of attack ; whether by violence., stratagem, or supplication :' probably has allusion here to some magical incantations by which sorcerers pretended to darken the sun ! — See Hor. Epod. v. xvii. so often to promise that he would (as a future act) SE- XVII« harden Pharaoh's heart, when now the miracles were in performance — Pharaoh all the while being a man who, before these miracles, and before this hardening, having been endured through the divine lenity, and not punished, had inflicted so many evils upon the children of Israel, in his fullblown pride, the offspring of his prosperity and wealth? So then, this trope is nothing at all to the purpose here ; since it might be applied promiscuously to all who sin under the endurance of divine indulgence. At this rate, we might say that all men are hardened : since there is no man who does not commit sin ; and no man could commit sin, if he were not endured with divine indulgence. This hardening of Pharaoh therefore is something different from, and beyond, that general endurance of the divine lenity.p

Rather, Moses's object is not so much to an- Moses's nounce Pharaoh's wickedness, as God's truth and ^ceta-nob" mercy : that the children of Israel may not for- such resooth mistrust the promises of God, by which he Peate(? teshad engaged to liberate them. This deliverance t0 God's being a vast thing, he forewarns them of its dif- desisn and ficulty, that their faith may not falter ; knowing hardening as they thus would, that all these things had been is to predicted, and were receiving such an accom- ig^efthen plishment, through the arrangement of that very person who had given them the promises. Just as if he should say, I am delivering you, it is most true ; but you will hardly believe it, Pharaoh will make such a resistance, and will so put off the event. But trust in my promises not a whit the less : all this very putting-off of his will be effected by my workings, that I may perform the p The word lenitas, which occurs so frequently in this passage, properly denotes c softness/ c gentleness/ ' kindness/ as opposed to ' roughness/ ' harshness/ ' severity / and seems most aptly to express that c forbearance/ or ' indulgence/ with which the Lord God suffereth long, and is kind.

part IV. more and the greater miracles, to confirm you in your faith, and to shew my power ; that you may hereafter place the greater confidence in me with respect to all other things. — This is just what Christ also does, when he promises the kingdom to his disciples at the last supper : he foretels very many difficulties — his own death, and their manifold tribulations — that when the event should have taken place, they might hereafter believe in him much more/1 Indeed, Moses sets this meaning very clearly before us, when he says, " But Pharaoh shall" not let you go, that many signs may be wrought in Egypt/' And again : " To this end have I stirred thee up, that I might shew in thee my power, and that my name might be declared in all the earth." You see here, that Pharaoh is hardened for this very purpose, that he may resist God, and may put off the redemption of Israel ; in order that occasion may be made for shewing many signs, and for declaring the power of God; to the end, that he may be spoken of and believed in, throughout all the earth. What is this else, but that all these things are spoken and done to confirm faith, and to comfort the weak, that they may freely trust in God hereafter, as the true, the faithful, the powerful and the merciful One? As if he would say to his little ones in softest words, ( Be not terrified by Pharaoh's hardness of heart ; I am the worker of that very hardness also, and I hold it in my own hands ; I who am your deliverer will use it with no other effect, than that it shall cause me to work many signs, and to declare

9 <( Now I teH you before it come (Judas s treachery), that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am He." " And now I have told you before it come to pass (his going to the Father), that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe." " But these things have I told you (their own persecutions), that, when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them." — (John xiii. 19. xiv. 29. xvi. 4.) r Exod. vii. 4. xi. 9. my greatness, to the end that ye may believe in se. xvii. me/3 Hence that saying, which Moses repeats after nearly every plague, " And the heart of Pharaohwas hardened, that he did not let the people go, as the Lord had spoken." What is this saying, u As the Lord had spoken/' but that God might be seen to be true, who had declared beforehand that he should be hardened? If there had been any vertibility here, any freeness of will in Pharaoh, such as had power to incline towards either side ; God could not with such certainty have foretold his induration — but since the Promiser here is one who can neither be mistaken, nor telJ a lie, it was necessarily and most assuredly to come to pass, that he should be hardened ; and this could not be, unless the induration were altogether without the limits of man's power, and stood only in the power of God : just as I have described it above ; to wit, God was certain that he should not omit the general exercise of his omnipotency in the person of Pharaoh, or because of Pharaoh ; seeing, it is what he even cannot omit.

Furthermore, he was equally sure that the will of Pharaoh, naturally wicked and averse from Him, could not consent to the word and work of God winch was contrary to it ; so that, whereas s Luther circumscribes the design. Doubtless, God would comfort and encourage his people by these acts and predictions : but self-manifestation was His one ultimate object ; and in order to this, the confounding, and the rendering yet more inexcusable, of his enemies, as well as the emboldening of his beloved ones. — Was there not also a manifestation of what human nature is, hereby made in his own people ? Did they all believe, after all these signs ? Whence those hankerings after Egypt ? Whence those, " It had been better for us to have served the Egyptians ?" — The whole is resolvable into that great first principle, ' God shewing what he is, by his dealings with the human nature as exhibited both in the elect and in the reprobate — in his friends and in his enemies.' But what a maze, or rather what a mass of inconsistency, is this history, and not this history only but all the Bible, without that principle }

part iv. the impulse to will was preserved inwardly in ' Pharaoh by God's omnipotency, and a contradictory word and work of God was thrown to meet it from without/ nothing else could be the result, but a stumbling and a hardening of the heart> in Pharaoh. For, if God had omitted the acting of his omnipotency in Pharaoh at the moment when he threw the contradictory message of Moses into his path, and if Pharaoh's will be supposed to have acted itself alone, by its own power; then possibly there might have been ground for questioning to which of the two sides it would have inclined itself. But now, seeing that he is driven and hurried along to an act of willing — no violence, it is true, being done to his will, because he is not forced against his will; but a natural operation of God hurrying him away to a natural acting of his will, such an one as it is, and that is a bad one — it follows that he cannot but run foulu of the word, and by so doing be hardened. — Thus, we see that this text fights manfully against Freewill : inasmuch as God who promises cannot lie ; and if he does not lie, Pharaoh's heart cannot but be hardened.

I Occur su objecta.'] It is contrived that this word and work of God should come into contact with the edge of the will excited into action by omnipotency, through an act like that of throwing a bone to a dog, or casting a stumbling-block in the path of a traveller. II Imp'mgere.'] Imp. (se scilicet subaudito) est ' ire impactum,' c prsecipitem ferri in aliquid.' — Here, as before,, we have God's actuation, the man's will, and the trying, provoking dispensation. But there seems a little confusion in the admission concerning the man's (Pharaoh's) own will, as separated from the divine impulse. He seems now to make the crisis of the evil lie there. I can understand that there might be inertness in the case which he supposes : but if there be an act of will, in an essentialhj bad will, I cannot understand how it should be other than evil. (See above, note k.) — The case is merely hypothetical, put for the sake of illustration (but, like many other intended illustrations, confusing rather than distinguishing the object on which it would shine), and impossible : for God acts always, and therefore actuates the wicked always -, that is, keeps them in their place and state as moral agents—* which is a state of activity.

But let us look at Paul also, who adopts this se.xviii; passage from Moses in Rom. ix. How sadly is Diatribe tormented here ; she twists herself into J^ence'to all manner of shapes, to avoid losing Freewill, this pasOne while she says it is the necessity of a conse- ^age » quence, but not the necessity of a conseqzient. Diatribe One while it is an ordered will, or will signified/ hard put to which may be resisted ; whereas a will of good fj"0^! ed pleasure is that which cannot be resisted ! One while the passages adduced from Paul do not oppose Freewill, because they do not speak of the salvation of man. One while the foreknowledge of God presupposesx necessity; another while it does not. One while grace prevents the willcausing it to will — accompanies it on its way, and gives the happy issue. One while the first cause effects every thing; another while it acts by second causes, itself doing nothing. By these and such like mocking words, she only aims to get time, and to snatch the cause meanwhile out of our sight, and drag it some whither else. She gives us credit for being as stupid and heartless, or as little interested in the cause, as she herself is. Or as little children, when frightened or at play, cover their eyes with their hands, and think nobody sees them, because they see nobody; even so Diatribe, not being able to bear the rays, or rather the lightnings, of the clearest possible words, uses all sorts of pretences to make it appear that she does not see the real truth; that she may persuade us, if possible, to cover our eyes, so as not even to see it ourselves. But all these are the marks of a convinced mind, which

v Ordinaiam seu voluntatem signi.~\ The distinction amounts to that of f regulated' and ' absolute :' will limited and restrained by ordinance, or by some outward sign which has revealed it ; and will of pure, uncontrolled good pleasure. The former of these, it is intimated, may be resisted j the latter cannot. x I understand ponit in a logical sense, i takes for granted j' assumes as a datum. part IV. struggles rashly against invincible truth. That figment of the necessity of a consequence as differing from the necessity of a consequent, has been confuted already. (Part i. Sect, xi.) Let Diatribe invent and re-invent, cavil and re-cavil, as much as she pleases, if God foreknew that Judas would be a traitor, Judas necessarily became a traitor ; nor was it in the power of Judas, or of any creature, to do otherwise, or to change his will, though he did what he did by an act of willing, and not by compulsion. But to will that act was the operation of a substance which God put into motion by his own omnipotency, as he also does every thing else. For it stands as an invincible and self-evident proposition, that c God neither lies, nor is mistaken.' The words under oar consideration are not obscure or doubtful words, although all the learned of all ages may have been blind, so as to understand and interpret them otherwise. Prevaricate as much as you may, your own conscience, and that of all men, is compelled to acknowledge, if God be not mistaken in that which he foreknows, the very thing foreknown must necessarily take place.

Else who could trust his promises, who would fear his threatenings, if what he promises or threatens do not necessarily follow? or, how can he promise or threaten, if his foreknowledge deceives him, or can be thwarted by our mutability? This excessive light of undoubted truth manifestly stops every mouth, puts an end to all questions, and decrees a victory in spite of all evasive subtilties. We know very well that the foreknowledge of man is beguiled. We know that an eclipse does not happen because it is foreknown, but is foreknown because it is going to happen. But what have we to do with this sort of foreknowledge ? we are arguing about the foreknowledge of God. Deny to this the necessity of the thing foreknown being effected,

and you take away the faith and fear of God ; sec.xix. you throw down all God's promises and threaten- ings; nay, you deny the very being of God. — But even Diatribe herself, after a long struggle, in which she has tried all her arts, is at length compelled by the force of truth to make confession of our sentiment, and says; 6 The question about the will and purpose of Diatribe's God is a more difficult one. For God wills the sionsTnd same things which he foreknows. And this is retractions what Paul subjoins; " Who resisteth his will, if exPosed' he pitieth whom he will, and hardeneth whom he will?" For if he were a king, he would do what he liked, so that no one should be able to resist him; he would be said to do what he would. Thus the will of God, as being the principal cause of ail events, seems to impose a necessity upon our will/ This is what she says. And I thank God that Diatribe has at last recovered her senses. What is become of Freewill now? But this eel slips again out of our hands, by saying in a moment ;

1 But Paul does not resolve this question ; on the contrary, he chides the inquirer ; nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God?' O exquisite evasion ! Is this what you call handling the word of God? to deliver a mere ipse dixit in this manner, by your own sole authority, of your own head, without producing testimonies of Scripture, without working miracles? let me rather say, thus to corrupt some of the clearest words that God ever spake ? Paul does not resolve this question : what is he doing then? ' He chides the inquirer/ says she. Is not this chiding the most complete resolution of the question ? What was in fact asked in this question concerning the will of God ? Was it not asked whether he puts a necessity upon our will? Paul answers, that "Thus (that is, because he does so) he hath mercy (He says) on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he part iv. hardeneth. It is not of him that willeth, nor of him ~ that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy "y Not content with having resolved the question, he moreover introduces those who, in opposition to this answer, murmur for Freewill — prating*, that neither is there any such thing as merit, neither are we condemned by any fault of our own ; and the like — for the very purpose of putting a stop to their indignation and murm urs ; saying,