Latest / Bondage of the Will / 015 - Appendices
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- 0:00Speaker 1: Appendices to the Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther,
- 0:04Speaker 1: translated by Henry Cole. This LibriVox recording is in the
- 0:07Speaker 1: public domain. Martin Luther's judgment of Erasmus of Rotterdam to
- 0:13Speaker 1: a certain friend, grace and peace in Christ. I received
- 0:18Speaker 1: your last letter gladly, my excellent friend, because I believe
- 0:22Speaker 1: you wish well to and are concerned for the state
- 0:25Speaker 1: of the Christian cause. And I wish and pray that
- 0:29Speaker 1: the Lord would perfect that which he hath begun in you.
- 0:33Speaker 1: I am grievous at hearing that among you also this
- 0:36Speaker 1: cruel persecution is carried on against Christ. But it will
- 0:40Speaker 1: come to this, either that cruel tyrant will change his
- 0:44Speaker 1: fury of his own accord, or you will change it
- 0:46Speaker 1: for him. And that shortly. Concerning predestination, I knew long
- 0:52Speaker 1: ago that Moslanis agrees with Erasmus, for he is an
- 0:57Speaker 1: Erasmian altogether. My fixed opinion is, however, that Erasmus knows
- 1:02Speaker 1: less about predestination, or rather pretends to know, than even
- 1:06Speaker 1: the schools of the Sophists have known. Nor have I
- 1:09Speaker 1: any need to fear a fall. While I maintain my
- 1:12Speaker 1: sentiments unchanged Erasmus is not to be dreaded on this point,
- 1:17Speaker 1: nor indeed on any essential point of Christianity. Truth is
- 1:21Speaker 1: more powerful than eloquence. The spirit is far above human talent,
- 1:26Speaker 1: faith is beyond all erudition, and as Paul saith, the
- 1:30Speaker 1: foolishness of God is wiser than men First Corinthians one,
- 1:33Speaker 1: twenty five. The eloquence of Cicero was often overthrown by
- 1:39Speaker 1: inferior eloquence in the discussion of public causes. Julian was
- 1:44Speaker 1: more eloquent than Augustine. In a word, the victory is
- 1:48Speaker 1: in the hands of lying eloquence, as it is written
- 1:52Speaker 1: out of the mouth of babes and sucklings. Hast thou
- 1:55Speaker 1: ordained strength that thou mightest still the enemy and the
- 1:58Speaker 1: avenger Psalm eight two, Matthew twenty one sixteen. I will
- 2:05Speaker 1: not provoke Erasmus, nor will I, even when provoked once
- 2:08Speaker 1: or twice, return the blow. And yet I do not
- 2:11Speaker 1: think he shows his wisdom in directing the powers of
- 2:14Speaker 1: his eloquence against me, For I fear he will not
- 2:17Speaker 1: find in Luther a favor of Picardy, nor be able
- 2:21Speaker 1: to exalt over me as he does over him. Where
- 2:24Speaker 1: he says, all congratulate me upon my victory over the Gaul.
- 2:29Speaker 1: But however, if he will enter the lists with me,
- 2:32Speaker 1: he shall find that Christ fears neither the powers of
- 2:35Speaker 1: the air nor the gates of Hell. And I, a
- 2:39Speaker 1: most weak tongued babe, will meet the all eloquent Erasmus
- 2:42Speaker 1: with confidence, caring nothing for his authority, his name, or
- 2:46Speaker 1: his reputation. I know well what is in the man,
- 2:50Speaker 1: seeing that I am well acquainted with the thoughts of Satan.
- 2:54Speaker 1: Though I expect he will daily manifest more and more
- 2:57Speaker 1: that disposition towards me which he fought busters in his heart.
- 3:02Speaker 1: I express myself thus plainly that you might have no
- 3:05Speaker 1: fear or concern on my account, nor be frightened at
- 3:09Speaker 1: the great and swelling words of others. I wish you
- 3:12Speaker 1: to salute Moselanus in my name, for I am not
- 3:15Speaker 1: therefore ill affected towards him, because he leans to the
- 3:18Speaker 1: side of Erasmus rather than to mine. Nay, tell him
- 3:21Speaker 1: to stand by Erasmus firmly, for the time will come
- 3:25Speaker 1: when he will think otherwise. In the meantime, the weakness
- 3:29Speaker 1: of an excellent heart is to be borne with. And
- 3:33Speaker 1: may you also prosper in the Lord Wirtemburgh fifteen twenty
- 3:37Speaker 1: two Martin Luther to Nicholas Almsdorf concerning Erasmus of Rotterdam,
- 3:46Speaker 1: Grace and peace in Christ. I thank you, my excellent friend,
- 3:50Speaker 1: that you give me so candidly your opinion on my book.
- 3:54Speaker 1: I care not at all that the Papists are offended.
- 3:57Speaker 1: I did not write on their account, for they are
- 3:59Speaker 1: not worth my writing or speaking in consideration of them
- 4:02Speaker 1: any more. God has given them up to a reprobate mind,
- 4:07Speaker 1: so that they even fight against that which they know
- 4:09Speaker 1: to be the truth. My cause was heard at Augsburg
- 4:13Speaker 1: before the Emperor Charles and the whole world, and found
- 4:16Speaker 1: to be irreprehensible and to contain sound doctrine. Moreover, my
- 4:21Speaker 1: confession and apology are made public and set in the
- 4:25Speaker 1: open light throughout the world. By these I have answered
- 4:28Speaker 1: an infinity of my adversary's books and all the lies
- 4:32Speaker 1: of the Papists, past, present and to come. I have
- 4:37Speaker 1: confessed Christ before this wicked and doulterous generation, and I
- 4:41Speaker 1: doubt not but that He will also confess me before
- 4:44Speaker 1: His Father and the Holy Angels. My light is set
- 4:48Speaker 1: on a candlestick let him that seeth it see it
- 4:51Speaker 1: more clearly. Still, let him that is blind be blinder. Still,
- 4:56Speaker 1: let him that is just be jester. Still, let him
- 4:59Speaker 1: that is filth be filthier. Still their blood be upon themselves.
- 5:05Speaker 1: I am clean from their blood. I have declared to
- 5:08Speaker 1: the unrighteous his unrighteousness, and he will not be converted.
- 5:13Speaker 1: Let him therefore die in his sins. I have saved
- 5:16Speaker 1: my own soul. There is no need, therefore, that I
- 5:20Speaker 1: should write, or care to write on their account any farther.
- 5:25Speaker 1: And as to your advice that that Grammarian or Vocabularian,
- 5:29Speaker 1: whom you call the Erasmian plagiary, should be held in contempt,
- 5:34Speaker 1: and that Erasmus himself should rather be answered, know that
- 5:38Speaker 1: I have held him in sufficient contempt already, for I
- 5:41Speaker 1: have not read one page of his writings. Jonas answered
- 5:45Speaker 1: him once, although I was much against his doing it,
- 5:48Speaker 1: and advised him, according to your opinion, to hold him
- 5:51Speaker 1: in contempt. For I know the man well from his
- 5:54Speaker 1: skin to his heart, that he is not worthy of
- 5:57Speaker 1: being spoken to or dealt with by any good man.
- 6:01Speaker 1: Such a hypocrite is he, and so full of reprobate,
- 6:04Speaker 1: envy and malevolence. Moreover, you know my usual way of
- 6:10Speaker 1: overthrowing writers of this stamp by holding them in silent contempt.
- 6:15Speaker 1: For how many books of Echius, faber emsir Cochles, and
- 6:20Speaker 1: many others, who seem to be as mountains in labor
- 6:24Speaker 1: and about to bring forth? I know not what wonders
- 6:27Speaker 1: have I myself, by my silence, only so utterly brought
- 6:30Speaker 1: to nothing that no memory of them is left. Cato
- 6:35Speaker 1: calls such pettifoggers and allows all their pratings to pass
- 6:39Speaker 1: by unnoticed, whereas if he had at all considered them
- 6:43Speaker 1: worthy of being noticed and answered, they might have procured
- 6:47Speaker 1: to themselves a lasting fame. And there is a trite
- 6:50Speaker 1: but true proverb. Full well I know that if with
- 6:54Speaker 1: dung embroiled, conqueror or conquered, still I am besoiled. But
- 7:00Speaker 1: here is my glorying. Whatever could be brought against me
- 7:04Speaker 1: from the scriptures and from the fathers has been produced
- 7:06Speaker 1: and published. And now all the glorying they have left
- 7:10Speaker 1: is in slanders, lies and calumnies. And why should I
- 7:15Speaker 1: envy them that, when they have no power or desire
- 7:18Speaker 1: whatever to be renowned for any other virtues? Your judgment
- 7:21Speaker 1: of Erasmus I much admire wherein you say plainly that
- 7:26Speaker 1: he has no other basis wherein to build his doctrine
- 7:29Speaker 1: but the favor of men, and attribute to him moreover
- 7:32Speaker 1: ignorance and malice. And if you could but convey this
- 7:36Speaker 1: judgment of yours with conviction to the minds of men
- 7:39Speaker 1: in general, you would, in truth, like another stripling David,
- 7:43Speaker 1: by this one blow, lay our boasting Goliath prostrate, and
- 7:48Speaker 1: at the same time eradicate the world of his sect.
- 7:52Speaker 1: For what is more vain, more fallacious in all things
- 7:56Speaker 1: than the applause of men, especially in things spiritual, For
- 8:00Speaker 1: as the Psalms testify, there is no help in them. Again,
- 8:05Speaker 1: all men are liars. If therefore Erasmus be nothing but vanity,
- 8:10Speaker 1: and rest alone on vanity and a lie, what need
- 8:13Speaker 1: is there to reply to him at all? He himself,
- 8:16Speaker 1: together with all his vanity, will at length vanish like
- 8:19Speaker 1: smoke if we betreat him as I have treated those
- 8:22Speaker 1: former scarecrows and petifoggers, whom, by my silence only I
- 8:27Speaker 1: have committed to utter oblivion. I at one time attributed
- 8:31Speaker 1: to him a singular kind of inconsistency in vain talking,
- 8:35Speaker 1: for he seemed to treat on sacred and serious things
- 8:38Speaker 1: with the greatest unconcern, and on the contrary to pursue
- 8:42Speaker 1: Bauble's vanities and things laughable and ridiculous, with the utmost avidity,
- 8:47Speaker 1: though an old man and a theologian, and at that
- 8:51Speaker 1: in an age the most industrious and laborious, So that
- 8:55Speaker 1: I really thought that what I had heard many men
- 8:58Speaker 1: of wisdom and gravity say was true, that Erasmus was
- 9:01Speaker 1: actually mad. When I first wrote against his diatribe, and
- 9:06Speaker 1: was compelled to weigh his words, as John says, try
- 9:10Speaker 1: the spirits, being disgusted at his inconsiderateness in a subject
- 9:14Speaker 1: of so much importance, in order that I might rouse
- 9:17Speaker 1: up the cold and doltish disputer. I goaded him as
- 9:21Speaker 1: if in a snoring sleep, calling him a disciple at
- 9:24Speaker 1: one time of Epicurus, at another of Lucian, and then
- 9:28Speaker 1: again declaring him to be of the opinion of the skeptics,
- 9:32Speaker 1: supposing that by these means he might perhaps be roused
- 9:35Speaker 1: up to enter upon the subject with more feeling. But
- 9:38Speaker 1: all was in vain. I only irritated the viper so
- 9:42Speaker 1: as to cause him at last to give birth to
- 9:45Speaker 1: his viper espis an offspring worthy of and exactly like
- 9:50Speaker 1: its parent. But however he proudly omitted to say one
- 9:54Speaker 1: single word to the subject point, so that from that
- 9:57Speaker 1: time I have despaired of his theology all ti together. Now, however,
- 10:03Speaker 1: I am quite of your opinion that it was not
- 10:05Speaker 1: inconsiderateness in him, but, as you say, real ignorance and malice.
- 10:10Speaker 1: For he was unacquainted with our doctrines or the doctrines
- 10:14Speaker 1: of Christianity. He knew them, but from policy would not
- 10:18Speaker 1: know them. And though he may not understand, nor indeed
- 10:22Speaker 1: can understand, those doctrines which are peculiar to our fraternity,
- 10:26Speaker 1: and which we maintain against the Synagogue of the Pope,
- 10:29Speaker 1: yet he cannot be ignorant of those which are held
- 10:32Speaker 1: in common by us and the Church under the Pope.
- 10:35Speaker 1: Because he writes on these very largely, or rather laughs
- 10:38Speaker 1: at them, such as the trinity of the divine persons,
- 10:42Speaker 1: the divinity and humanity of Christ, sin, the redemption of
- 10:47Speaker 1: the human race, the resurrection of the dead, eternal life,
- 10:51Speaker 1: and the like. He knows. I say that these things
- 10:55Speaker 1: are taught and believed even by many ungodly and false Christians.
- 10:59Speaker 1: But the truth is he hates all the doctrines together. Nay,
- 11:03Speaker 1: there can be no doubt in the mind of a
- 11:05Speaker 1: true believer who has the spirit in his nostrils, that
- 11:08Speaker 1: his mind is alienated from and utterly hates all religion together,
- 11:13Speaker 1: and especially the religion of Christ. Many proofs of this
- 11:17Speaker 1: are scattered here and there, and it will come to
- 11:20Speaker 1: pass by and by that alike the mole, he will
- 11:23Speaker 1: throw up some dirt that will show where and what
- 11:26Speaker 1: he is, and prove his own destruction. He published lately,
- 11:30Speaker 1: among his other works his Catechism, a production evidently of
- 11:35Speaker 1: Satanic subtlety, For with a purpose full of craft, he
- 11:39Speaker 1: designs to take children and youths at the outset, and
- 11:42Speaker 1: to infect them with his poisons, that they might not
- 11:45Speaker 1: afterwards be eradicated from them, just as he himself in
- 11:49Speaker 1: Italy and at Rome so sucked in his doctrine of
- 11:53Speaker 1: sorcerers and of devils, that now all remedy is too late.
- 11:57Speaker 1: But who would bear with this method of bringing up
- 11:59Speaker 1: children or the weak in faith which Erasmus proposes to us.
- 12:04Speaker 1: The tender and unexperienced mind is to be formed at
- 12:07Speaker 1: first by certain plain and necessary principles, which it may
- 12:11Speaker 1: firmly believe, because it is necessary that every one who
- 12:15Speaker 1: would learn should believe, For what will he ever learn
- 12:18Speaker 1: who either doubts himself or is taught to doubt. But
- 12:22Speaker 1: this new catechist of ours aims only at rendering his
- 12:26Speaker 1: catechumens and the doctrines of faith suspicious. For at the
- 12:30Speaker 1: very outset, laying aside all solid foundation, he does nothing
- 12:34Speaker 1: but set before them those heresies and offenses of opinions
- 12:38Speaker 1: by which the Church has been troubled from the beginning,
- 12:42Speaker 1: so that in fact he would make it appear that
- 12:44Speaker 1: there has been nothing certain in the Christian religion. And
- 12:48Speaker 1: if an unexperienced mind be from the beginning poisoned by
- 12:51Speaker 1: principles and questions of this kind, what else can it
- 12:55Speaker 1: be expected to think of or do, but either to
- 12:58Speaker 1: withdraw itself secretly from, or if it dare to hold
- 13:02Speaker 1: the Christian religion in utter detestation, as a pest to mankind.
- 13:08Speaker 1: He imagines, however, all the while, that no one will
- 13:11Speaker 1: discover the craft of his design, as though we had
- 13:14Speaker 1: not in the scripture's numberless examples of these bugbears of
- 13:17Speaker 1: the devil. It was thus the serpent dealt with Eve.
- 13:22Speaker 1: He first entangled her in doubts and brought her to
- 13:25Speaker 1: suspect the reality of the precept of God concerning the
- 13:27Speaker 1: Tree of knowledge of good and evil. And when he
- 13:30Speaker 1: had brought her to a standstill of doubt, overthrew and
- 13:33Speaker 1: destroyed her. Unless Erasmus considers this to be a mere fable.
- 13:38Speaker 1: Also it is with the same serpent like attack that
- 13:42Speaker 1: he creeps upon and deceives simple souls, saying, how is
- 13:46Speaker 1: it that there have been so many sects and errors
- 13:49Speaker 1: in this one true religion as it is believed to be?
- 13:53Speaker 1: How is it that there have been so many creeds?
- 13:56Speaker 1: Why in the apostles creed is the Father called God God,
- 14:00Speaker 1: the Son not God but Lord, and the Spirit neither
- 14:04Speaker 1: God nor Lord, but Holy? And so on? Who I
- 14:08Speaker 1: would ask troubles unexperienced souls whom he undertakes to instruct
- 14:13Speaker 1: with questions like these, but the devil himself. Who would
- 14:16Speaker 1: dare to speak thus upon a creed of faith? But
- 14:19Speaker 1: the very mouth and instrument of the devil. Here you
- 14:23Speaker 1: have the plot, the execution, and the catastrophic end of
- 14:27Speaker 1: a soul murdering tragedy. But behold, I am here almost
- 14:32Speaker 1: carried into a refutation of his catechism, whereas I merely
- 14:35Speaker 1: intended to show you why I thought it better not
- 14:38Speaker 1: to answer this viber at all, because he will most
- 14:41Speaker 1: effectually refute himself in the minds of all godly and
- 14:44Speaker 1: good men. The like game also he played on the
- 14:48Speaker 1: apostle Paul in his Preface to the Romans, to say
- 14:52Speaker 1: nothing about his paraphrases or his mad vagaries paraphernaces, to
- 14:57Speaker 1: use his own term where he speaks of the praises
- 15:00Speaker 1: of Paul, in that way that no simple reader whatever,
- 15:03Speaker 1: who is unacquainted with rhetoric, could be more effectually drawn
- 15:07Speaker 1: away and beaten off from reading and studying Paul. So confused, intricate,
- 15:13Speaker 1: self contradictory, diverse, and disgusting does he represent him to be,
- 15:19Speaker 1: so that the reader must of necessity believe the epistle
- 15:21Speaker 1: to be the production of some madman. So far is
- 15:25Speaker 1: it from possibility that he should consider it to be profitable,
- 15:30Speaker 1: And among the rest of his razors sharp cuts he
- 15:32Speaker 1: could not receive without venting his spleen. Even this, that
- 15:36Speaker 1: Peter should call Christ man and say nothing of his
- 15:39Speaker 1: godhead a notable annotation, truly and most appropriately applicable to
- 15:44Speaker 1: the passage. And then as to his method, with all
- 15:48Speaker 1: its twistings and windings, what is it but a holding
- 15:51Speaker 1: up of Christ, and everything done by him to derision.
- 15:55Speaker 1: Who could gather anything from this method but a disgusted at, nay,
- 15:59Speaker 1: a hatred of attending to a religion so confused and perplexed,
- 16:03Speaker 1: and perhaps after all merely fabulous. Who moreover ever spoke
- 16:09Speaker 1: in so much disdain and contempt, not to say enmity
- 16:13Speaker 1: of the apostle and evangelist John, who among Christians is
- 16:17Speaker 1: held to be of the highest authority after Christ, he
- 16:21Speaker 1: merely scolds little children, except it be when he considers
- 16:25Speaker 1: a man to be adult or a loggerhead. Christians ever
- 16:30Speaker 1: speak of the apostles with reverence and fear, whereas this
- 16:34Speaker 1: fellow would teach us to speak of them with profane
- 16:36Speaker 1: pride and contempt. And this is the first step towards
- 16:40Speaker 1: speaking profanely of God himself, whose the apostles are. Nay,
- 16:45Speaker 1: it is the same as saying in contempt of the
- 16:48Speaker 1: Holy Spirit, whose the words of the apostles are that
- 16:52Speaker 1: he merely scolds little children. Numberless things of this kind
- 16:56Speaker 1: are to be found in Erasmus. Or rather, this is
- 17:00Speaker 1: his whole character in theology, and this many others have
- 17:04Speaker 1: observed before me, and still do observe daily more and more.
- 17:08Speaker 1: Nor does he cease to go on and to publish
- 17:10Speaker 1: daily his annotations more and more grossly, for his judgment
- 17:15Speaker 1: now for a long time lingereth not, and his damnation
- 17:19Speaker 1: slumbereth not. This is also a notable instance of the
- 17:24Speaker 1: piety of Erasmus in his letter upon Christian Philosophy, which
- 17:29Speaker 1: is published with his New Testament and used in common
- 17:32Speaker 1: throughout all the churches. When he had propounded the question
- 17:36Speaker 1: why Christ, so great a teacher descended from heaven when
- 17:40Speaker 1: there are many things taught even among the Heathens, which
- 17:43Speaker 1: are precisely the same, if not more perfect, he answers
- 17:47Speaker 1: Christ came, which I doubt not, but he believed most
- 17:51Speaker 1: erasmianly from heaven, that he might exemplify those things more
- 17:55Speaker 1: perfectly and more fully than any of the saints before him. Thus,
- 18:00Speaker 1: this miserable renewer of all things Christ, for so he reproaches,
- 18:05Speaker 1: the Lord of glory, has lost the glory of a
- 18:08Speaker 1: redeemer and becomes only one more holy than others. This
- 18:13Speaker 1: sentiment could not be expressed in ignorance, but must have
- 18:17Speaker 1: been designed and wilful, because even those who do not
- 18:20Speaker 1: truly believe know and everywhere confess that Christ descended from
- 18:25Speaker 1: heaven to redeem us men from sin and death. This
- 18:29Speaker 1: was the sentiment that first alienated my mind from Erasmus.
- 18:33Speaker 1: From that moment I began to suspect him of being
- 18:36Speaker 1: a plain democritus or Epicurus, and a crafty derider of Christ,
- 18:42Speaker 1: for he everywhere intimates to his fellow Epicureans his hatred
- 18:46Speaker 1: against Christ, though he does it in words so figurative
- 18:50Speaker 1: and insidious that he leaves himself a clew for raging
- 18:54Speaker 1: most furiously against those Christians who, from being offended at
- 18:58Speaker 1: his suspicious and double manas words, will not interpret them
- 19:02Speaker 1: as standing in favor of their Christ. As though Erasmus
- 19:05Speaker 1: himself had an all free prerogative throughout the world of
- 19:09Speaker 1: speaking on divine things with obliquity in craft, and had
- 19:14Speaker 1: all men so under his thumb that they must interpret
- 19:17Speaker 1: all his obliquities and crafty maneuvers as having an upright
- 19:21Speaker 1: and honest intent. Why does he not rather speak openly
- 19:25Speaker 1: and plainly. Why does he always deal in these crafty
- 19:29Speaker 1: and ensnaring figures of speech so great a rhetorician in
- 19:33Speaker 1: Theologian ought not only to know, but to act according
- 19:36Speaker 1: to that which Phabeus says. An ambiguous word should be
- 19:41Speaker 1: avoided as a rock. Where it happens now and then
- 19:45Speaker 1: inadvertently it may be pardoned. But where it is sought
- 19:49Speaker 1: for designedly and purposely, it deserves no pardon whatever, but
- 19:53Speaker 1: justly merits the abhorrence of every one. For to what
- 19:57Speaker 1: does this hateful, double tongued way of speaking tend. It
- 20:00Speaker 1: only furnishes an opportunity of disseminating and fostering, in safety
- 20:04Speaker 1: the seeds of every heresy under the cover of words
- 20:07Speaker 1: and letters that have a show of Christian faith. And thus,
- 20:11Speaker 1: while religion is believed to be taught and defended, it
- 20:14Speaker 1: is in reality utterly destroyed and subverted from its foundation
- 20:18Speaker 1: before it is understood. Wherefore all are perfectly in the
- 20:23Speaker 1: right who interpret his suspicious and insidious words against himself.
- 20:27Speaker 1: Nor is any notice to be taken of him when
- 20:30Speaker 1: he cries out calumly calumny because his words are not
- 20:33Speaker 1: fairly and candidly interpreted. Why does he himself ever avoid
- 20:38Speaker 1: fair words and designedly express himself in those which are unfair.
- 20:43Speaker 1: For it is an unheard of kind of tyranny to
- 20:46Speaker 1: wish to have the whole human race so under his thumb,
- 20:49Speaker 1: that they should be compelled to understand fairly what he
- 20:52Speaker 1: says insidiously and dangerously, and thus sede to him the
- 20:56Speaker 1: prerogative of expressing himself insidiously. No, let him rather be
- 21:01Speaker 1: reduced to order and commanded to bow to the whole
- 21:04Speaker 1: human race, that is, by abstaining from that profane and
- 21:08Speaker 1: double tongued vertibility of speech in vain talking, and by avoiding,
- 21:12Speaker 1: as Paul saith, profane and vain babblings. For this it
- 21:17Speaker 1: was that even the public laws of the Roman Empire
- 21:20Speaker 1: condemned this manner of speaking and punished it. Thus they
- 21:24Speaker 1: commanded that the words of him, who should speak obscurely,
- 21:27Speaker 1: when he could speak more plainly, should be interpreted against himself.
- 21:31Speaker 1: And Christ also condemned that wicked servant who excused himself
- 21:35Speaker 1: by an evasion and interpreting his own words against himself. Said,
- 21:40Speaker 1: out of thine own mouth, will I judge thee thou
- 21:43Speaker 1: wicked servant? For if in religion, in laws, and in
- 21:47Speaker 1: all weighty matters, we should be allowed to express ourselves
- 21:50Speaker 1: ambiguously and insidiously. What could follow but that utter confusion
- 21:55Speaker 1: of babel, where no one could understand another. This would
- 21:59Speaker 1: be to the language of eloquence, and in so doing,
- 22:02Speaker 1: to lose the language of nature. Moreover, if this license
- 22:07Speaker 1: should prevail, I might conveniently interpret all that the whole
- 22:10Speaker 1: herd of heretics ever said, Nay, all that the devil
- 22:14Speaker 1: himself ever did, or said, or could say or do,
- 22:17Speaker 1: to all eternity. Where then would be the power of
- 22:21Speaker 1: refuting the heretics and the devil? Where would be that
- 22:24Speaker 1: wisdom of the Lord Christ, which all the adversaries shall
- 22:27Speaker 1: not be able to resist. What would become of logic,
- 22:31Speaker 1: the instructor of teaching rightly? What would become of rhetoric
- 22:35Speaker 1: the faculty of persuading? Nothing would be taught, nothing would
- 22:39Speaker 1: be learned, No persuasion could be carried home, no consolation
- 22:43Speaker 1: could be given, No fear would be wrought, because nothing
- 22:47Speaker 1: would be spoken or heard. That was certain. When therefore
- 22:51Speaker 1: Erasmus lightly and ridiculously says of John the Evangelist that
- 22:55Speaker 1: he merely scolds babes, he is to be adjudged immediately
- 22:59Speaker 1: a discipher of Epicurus or Democritus, and to be addressed. Thus,
- 23:04Speaker 1: learn to speak of majesty with more reverence. Some noted
- 23:08Speaker 1: jesters have indeed sometimes spoken of princes thus irreverently and foolike,
- 23:14Speaker 1: but not always with impunity. But if any one else
- 23:17Speaker 1: of a sound mind and judgment had done the same,
- 23:19Speaker 1: he might perhaps have lost his head for the crime
- 23:22Speaker 1: of insulted majesty. Thus, when Erasmus says, Peter addressed Christ
- 23:27Speaker 1: as man, and says nothing of his divinity, he is
- 23:31Speaker 1: to be condemned of arianism and heresy, because he could
- 23:34Speaker 1: have omitted this insidious observation altogether in a matter where
- 23:38Speaker 1: the divine majesty is eminently concerned, or have spoken more reverently,
- 23:44Speaker 1: for the words plainly imply that the Arians do not
- 23:47Speaker 1: like that Christ should be called God, but consider it
- 23:50Speaker 1: better that he should be called man only. And how
- 23:53Speaker 1: conveniently soever, they may be interpreted in favor of the
- 23:57Speaker 1: divinity of Christ. Yet as they stand and are read
- 24:00Speaker 1: according to their plain meaning, especially since their author is suspicious,
- 24:04Speaker 1: they offend Christian minds because they have not one plain meaning,
- 24:09Speaker 1: and may be more easily understood to favor the Arians
- 24:12Speaker 1: than the Orthodox. Hence, Jerome, writing of the Arians of
- 24:16Speaker 1: his time, who taught in the same artful way, says
- 24:20Speaker 1: their priests say one thing, and their people understand another.
- 24:25Speaker 1: In like manner, there was no necessity for observing to
- 24:27Speaker 1: Christians on that passage that Peter did not call Christ God,
- 24:31Speaker 1: though in truth he did not omit to call Christ God.
- 24:35Speaker 1: Nor is it enough to pretend that he called him
- 24:37Speaker 1: man only on account of the common multitude. For though
- 24:41Speaker 1: he did call him man, yet he did not therefore
- 24:45Speaker 1: omit to call him God, except that he did not
- 24:47Speaker 1: pronounce these three letters God. But this Erasmus rigidly deems
- 24:53Speaker 1: was necessary. By so doing. However, he does nothing here
- 24:57Speaker 1: as well as every other place, but lays, without any
- 25:01Speaker 1: cause whatever, to entrap the inexperienced and to render our
- 25:04Speaker 1: religion suspicious. That Carpitian, whoever he was, justly condemns him
- 25:11Speaker 1: as a favorer of the Aryans in his preface to Hilary,
- 25:14Speaker 1: where he has said, we dare to call the Holy
- 25:17Speaker 1: Spirit God, which the ancients did not dare to do,
- 25:21Speaker 1: And when having been faithfully admonished, he ought to have
- 25:24Speaker 1: acknowledged his high flown figures of speech and his arianisms,
- 25:27Speaker 1: and to have corrected them. He not only did not
- 25:30Speaker 1: do that, but even inveighed against the admonition as a
- 25:34Speaker 1: calumny proceeding from Satan, and laughed at the divinity twofold.
- 25:38Speaker 1: More than ever such a confidence has he in his
- 25:41Speaker 1: pliability of speech and his circumlocutive evasions. Nevertheless, he very
- 25:47Speaker 1: seriously confesses the Trinity, and would not, by any means
- 25:50Speaker 1: whatever be thought to deny the trinity of the Godhead,
- 25:53Speaker 1: but only wishes to say that the curiosity which he
- 25:57Speaker 1: afterwards requests will be conveniently interpreted. Diligence of the moderns
- 26:02Speaker 1: has received and dared many things from the scriptures which
- 26:05Speaker 1: the ancients dared not, as though the Christian religion rested
- 26:09Speaker 1: on the authority of men. For this is what he
- 26:12Speaker 1: would persuade us to. And what is this but considering
- 26:15Speaker 1: all religion together to be a mere fable. Here, although
- 26:20Speaker 1: the Carpacian may be many things of no weight whatever,
- 26:24Speaker 1: and ever an enemy to Luther, yet Erasmus, from an
- 26:28Speaker 1: unheard of pride, thinks all men together to be mere
- 26:31Speaker 1: stocks and stones, who neither understand any subject nor see
- 26:35Speaker 1: through the meaning of any words, read that observation of
- 26:39Speaker 1: his and say, if you do not discover the incarnate devil,
- 26:43Speaker 1: this observation fixes in me a determination. Let others do
- 26:48Speaker 1: as they please. Not to believe Erasmus, even if he
- 26:51Speaker 1: should openly confess in plain words that Christ is God.
- 26:55Speaker 1: But I would address to him that sophistical saying of Chrysippus.
- 26:59Speaker 1: If you long you lie, even when you speak the truth.
- 27:02Speaker 1: For what need was there if he in verity believed
- 27:05Speaker 1: that the Holy Spirit is God, to say, we dare
- 27:09Speaker 1: to call the Holy Spirit God, which the Ancients did
- 27:12Speaker 1: not dare to do. What need was there to use
- 27:15Speaker 1: this vertible word? Dare that it might apply both to
- 27:19Speaker 1: the praise and dispraise of these same moderns when we
- 27:24Speaker 1: received this doctrine from the Ancients and did not dare
- 27:27Speaker 1: to receive it first. But however, it is a stark
- 27:32Speaker 1: lie to say that the Ancients did not first dare
- 27:35Speaker 1: to call the Holy Spirit God unless by Ancients, according
- 27:39Speaker 1: to one of his very beautiful figures of speech, he
- 27:42Speaker 1: means Democratus and Epicurus, or unless he means God materially,
- 27:48Speaker 1: that is, these three letters God. But to what purpose
- 27:52Speaker 1: is all this hateful maneuvering, but to make of a
- 27:55Speaker 1: gnat an elephant as a stumbling block to the unexperienced,
- 27:59Speaker 1: and to intimate that the Christian religion is a nothing
- 28:02Speaker 1: at all, and that for no other reason than because
- 28:06Speaker 1: these three letters God are not written in every place
- 28:10Speaker 1: where he considers they ought to have been written in
- 28:14Speaker 1: the same manner his fathers, the Arians, made numberless quibbles
- 28:18Speaker 1: because these letters homeusius and in nascubelis were not found
- 28:23Speaker 1: in the sacred writings, considering it nothing to the purpose
- 28:27Speaker 1: that the same thing could be solidly proved in substance.
- 28:30Speaker 1: And where the name God was written, they were ready
- 28:34Speaker 1: with their gloss to elude the truth by contending that
- 28:37Speaker 1: it did not mean God in reality, but God by appellation.
- 28:42Speaker 1: So that you can do nothing with these vipers, whether
- 28:44Speaker 1: you speak to them by the scriptures or without the scriptures.
- 28:49Speaker 1: This is the way of the malice of Satan. When
- 28:52Speaker 1: he cannot deny the fact, he turns to demanding certain
- 28:55Speaker 1: particular terms, which he himself prescribes. And thus the devil
- 29:00Speaker 1: himself may say, even to Christ, although thou speakest the truth,
- 29:04Speaker 1: Yet since thou dost not speak it in the terms
- 29:07Speaker 1: which I think requisite thou sayest nothing at all, and
- 29:11Speaker 1: I wish the truth to be spoken in no words whatever.
- 29:15Speaker 1: This is like Marcolpus, who wished to be hung upon
- 29:19Speaker 1: a tree chosen by himself, and yet wished to choose
- 29:23Speaker 1: no tree at all. But of this elsewhere, if the
- 29:27Speaker 1: Lord shall give me leisure and length of life, for
- 29:31Speaker 1: it is my determination to leave behind me my true
- 29:34Speaker 1: and faithful testimony concerning Erasmus, and thus to expose Luther
- 29:38Speaker 1: to be bitten and stung by these vipers, but not
- 29:41Speaker 1: to be utterly torn in pieces and destroyed. And I
- 29:45Speaker 1: return to my observations upon my liberty, which I have asserted,
- 29:48Speaker 1: giving it as my sentiments, that the tyranny of Erasmus,
- 29:52Speaker 1: which he would exercise by means of circumlocutive evasions, is
- 29:55Speaker 1: not to be born, but that he is to be
- 29:58Speaker 1: judged openly out of his own mouth. Where he speaks
- 30:01Speaker 1: as an aryan, let him be judged as an Aryan,
- 30:05Speaker 1: where he speaks as a Lucian. Let him be judged
- 30:08Speaker 1: a Lucian where he speaks as a gentile. Let him
- 30:11Speaker 1: be judged a gentile unless he repent and cease to
- 30:15Speaker 1: defend such ways of expressing himself. For instance, in one
- 30:20Speaker 1: of his epistles on the incarnation of the Son of God,
- 30:23Speaker 1: he uses a most abominable term, calling it the intercourse
- 30:27Speaker 1: of God with the Virgin. Here he is to be
- 30:30Speaker 1: judged a horrible blasphemer of God and the Virgin. Nor
- 30:34Speaker 1: does it make him at all better his afterwards expounding
- 30:38Speaker 1: intercourse as applying to the form of the Christian doctrine,
- 30:42Speaker 1: why did he not speak of the form of the
- 30:44Speaker 1: Christian doctrine? For he well knew that by this word intercourse,
- 30:49Speaker 1: Christians could not but be greatly offended. And let him
- 30:53Speaker 1: be judged ungodly. Who would not be offended at a
- 30:56Speaker 1: term so abominably obscene in a matter so sacred, knowing
- 31:00Speaker 1: that an ambiguous expression of such a nature is always
- 31:04Speaker 1: taken in its worst sense, even though we be not
- 31:07Speaker 1: ignorant that the term may have another meaning. If it
- 31:11Speaker 1: take place from inadvertency, it may be pardoned, if from
- 31:15Speaker 1: design and wilfulness it is to be condemned, as I said,
- 31:19Speaker 1: without mercy, For to hold the doctrine of faith is
- 31:22Speaker 1: arduous and a divine work, even when delivered in proper,
- 31:27Speaker 1: evident and certain words. How then shall it be held
- 31:31Speaker 1: if it be delivered in ambiguous, doubtful, and oblique words.
- 31:36Speaker 1: Saint Augustine says philosophers ought to speak freely on difficult points,
- 31:41Speaker 1: fearing no offense. But we says, he must speak to
- 31:45Speaker 1: a certain rule. And therefore he blames the use of
- 31:49Speaker 1: the term fortune or fate, both in himself and others.
- 31:53Speaker 1: For even though the person may by fortune mean the
- 31:57Speaker 1: divine mind, the agent of all things, from which nature
- 32:01Speaker 1: is known to be distinctly different, and thus may not
- 32:04Speaker 1: think impiously, yet says he let him hold his sentiment,
- 32:08Speaker 1: but correct his expression. And even to suppose that Augustine
- 32:13Speaker 1: did not say this, and never had any certain rule
- 32:15Speaker 1: according to which he expressed himself, yet nature will tell
- 32:19Speaker 1: us that every profession sacred, as well as profane, uses
- 32:23Speaker 1: certain terms of its own, and avoids all ambiguities. For
- 32:28Speaker 1: even common tradesmen either reprove or condemn, or hold up
- 32:32Speaker 1: to ridicule the man who speaks of his own trade
- 32:36Speaker 1: in the technical terms, as they are called peculiar to
- 32:39Speaker 1: the trade of another. With how much greater force will
- 32:43Speaker 1: this apply to things sacred where certain salvation or eternal
- 32:47Speaker 1: perdition is the consequence, and where all must be taught
- 32:51Speaker 1: in certain and proper terms. Let us, if we must
- 32:55Speaker 1: do it, trifle with ambiguities in other things that are
- 32:58Speaker 1: of no moment, as nuts, apples, pence, and other things
- 33:03Speaker 1: which are the toys of children and of fools. But
- 33:06Speaker 1: in religion and weighty matters of state, let us shun
- 33:10Speaker 1: with all possible care and ambiguity, as we would shun death,
- 33:14Speaker 1: or the devil. Our king of ambiguity, however, sits upon
- 33:18Speaker 1: his ambiguous throne insecurity and destroys us stupid Christians, with
- 33:23Speaker 1: a double destruction. First, it is his will, and it
- 33:27Speaker 1: is a great pleasure to him to offend us by
- 33:30Speaker 1: his ambiguous words. And indeed he would not like it
- 33:33Speaker 1: if we, stupid blocks, were not offended. And next, when
- 33:37Speaker 1: he sees that we are offended and have run against
- 33:40Speaker 1: his insidious figures of speech and begin to exclaim against him,
- 33:44Speaker 1: he then begins to triumph and rejoice that the desired
- 33:48Speaker 1: prey has been caught in his snares. For now, having
- 33:51Speaker 1: found an opportunity of displaying his rhetoric, he rushes upon
- 33:55Speaker 1: us with all his powers and all his noise, tearing us,
- 33:59Speaker 1: flogging us, crucifying us, and sending us farther than Hell itself,
- 34:04Speaker 1: saying that we have understood his words calumniously, virulently, satanically,
- 34:10Speaker 1: using the worst terms he can find, whereas he never
- 34:13Speaker 1: meant them to be so understood in the exercise of
- 34:18Speaker 1: this wonderful tyranny. And who would think that this madam
- 34:21Speaker 1: ambiguity could make so much ado or who could suppose
- 34:25Speaker 1: that any one would be so great a madman as
- 34:28Speaker 1: to have so much confidence in a vain figure of speech.
- 34:31Speaker 1: He not only compels us to put up with his
- 34:34Speaker 1: all free prerogative of using ambiguities, but binds us down
- 34:38Speaker 1: to the necessity of keeping silence. He plainly designs all
- 34:42Speaker 1: the while and wishes us to be offended, that he
- 34:46Speaker 1: and his herd of epicureans with him may have a
- 34:49Speaker 1: laugh at us as fools. But on the other hand,
- 34:52Speaker 1: he does not like to hear that we are offended,
- 34:55Speaker 1: lest it should appear that we are true Christians. Thus
- 34:58Speaker 1: must we suffer wounds without number, and yet not utter
- 35:02Speaker 1: a groan or a sigh. We Christians, however, who are
- 35:06Speaker 1: to judge not meets and drinks only, but angels in
- 35:09Speaker 1: the whole world, And who actually judge even now not
- 35:13Speaker 1: only do not bear with this tyranny of ambiguities, but
- 35:16Speaker 1: on the contrary, opposed to it our liberty of pronouncing
- 35:19Speaker 1: the twofold condemnation. The first is, as I have already observed,
- 35:25Speaker 1: we condemn all the ambiguous expressions of Erasmus and interpret
- 35:29Speaker 1: them against himself. As Christ saith out of thine own mouth.
- 35:33Speaker 1: Will I judge thee thou wicked servant again by thine
- 35:37Speaker 1: own words, shalt thou be condemned? For wherefore hast thou
- 35:41Speaker 1: spoken against thine own soul? Thy blood be upon thine
- 35:45Speaker 1: own head. The second condemnation is we condemn and curse
- 35:50Speaker 1: again and again his glosses and convenient interpretations, by which
- 35:55Speaker 1: he not only does not correct his ungodly expressions, but
- 35:58Speaker 1: even defends them. That is, he laughs at us twice
- 36:02Speaker 1: as much in his after interpretations as he does in
- 36:05Speaker 1: his first expressions. For example, he says that by the
- 36:10Speaker 1: intercourse of God with the Virgin, he does not mean
- 36:13Speaker 1: a common intercourse, but another kind of marriage between God
- 36:17Speaker 1: and the Virgin, where the Angel Gabriel is the bridegroom
- 36:20Speaker 1: and the Holy Spirit performs the act of consummation. Only
- 36:25Speaker 1: observe what this fellow, by his interpretation, would have us
- 36:28Speaker 1: to hear and understand Christ to be. And he says
- 36:32Speaker 1: these things that he might defend the filthiness and obscenity
- 36:35Speaker 1: of his expression in the face of offended Christians, and
- 36:39Speaker 1: laugh at them all the while. And thus he forces
- 36:42Speaker 1: upon us this offensive term, when he knows very well
- 36:46Speaker 1: that this mystery of the most Holy incarnation cannot be
- 36:49Speaker 1: explained to the mind of man by all the obscene
- 36:52Speaker 1: and ambiguous words of the whole world. But how it
- 36:55Speaker 1: is understood by the epicureans, I dare not for horror imagine,
- 37:00Speaker 1: why do we not call the conversation of God with
- 37:03Speaker 1: Moses and the other prophets intercourse also, and make the
- 37:07Speaker 1: angels bridegrooms, and the Holy Spirit the consummator of the act,
- 37:12Speaker 1: or make of it something still more obscene. Moreover, here
- 37:17Speaker 1: is the impious idea of sex, introduced to perfect this
- 37:20Speaker 1: monstrous derision, of saying that God had intercourse with the Virgin,
- 37:25Speaker 1: in order that the whole might be made a fable
- 37:28Speaker 1: like that wherein Mars is said to have had intercourse
- 37:31Speaker 1: with Rhea, and Jupiter with Semele, and that Christianity might
- 37:36Speaker 1: be reduced to a level with one of the fabulous
- 37:39Speaker 1: stories of old, and men represented as fools in pitiable
- 37:43Speaker 1: madmen for believing such a story to be serious and true,
- 37:47Speaker 1: not considering what turpitudes and obscenities were the objects of
- 37:51Speaker 1: their faith and worship. And therefore Christians, that stupid set
- 37:55Speaker 1: of creatures were to be admonished by means of figures
- 37:59Speaker 1: like these, to begin to doubt, and then from doubting
- 38:02Speaker 1: to depart from the faith, that thus religion might be
- 38:06Speaker 1: utterly destroyed before any one could be aware of it.
- 38:10Speaker 1: This is the verification of that parable Matthew thirteen, where
- 38:14Speaker 1: the enemy is represented as sowing terrors in the night
- 38:17Speaker 1: and going his way. Thus, we Christians are sleeping in security,
- 38:22Speaker 1: and even if we were not sleeping, those bewitching sirens,
- 38:25Speaker 1: by their honey of speech, would soon lull us to
- 38:28Speaker 1: sleep and bring a cloud of night over our eyes.
- 38:32Speaker 1: In the meantime are sown those terrors of figurative and
- 38:35Speaker 1: insidious words. And yet when Sacramentarians, Donatists, Arians and a Baptists,
- 38:42Speaker 1: Epicureans and so forth are sprung up, we ask, how
- 38:46Speaker 1: is it that our Lord's field hath tars. They, however,
- 38:50Speaker 1: who have sown them, are gone away. That is, they
- 38:54Speaker 1: so paint and set themselves off by their convenient interpretations,
- 38:58Speaker 1: and withdraw themselves from sight, that they seem as if
- 39:02Speaker 1: they had sown nothing but wheat. Thus the enemy slides away,
- 39:06Speaker 1: and is off in safety, and crowned with honor and applause,
- 39:10Speaker 1: and appears to be a friend, when he is, in
- 39:12Speaker 1: truth the greatest of enemies. This is the way with
- 39:16Speaker 1: the strange woman Proverbs thirty, who, when she has eaten,
- 39:20Speaker 1: wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.
- 39:26Speaker 1: Thus have I replied to your letter, my friend Armsdorf,
- 39:29Speaker 1: Though perhaps I have been too long and tedious, but
- 39:32Speaker 1: I wished to show you why I judged it best
- 39:35Speaker 1: not to answer Erasmus any farther. I am, moreover abundantly
- 39:40Speaker 1: engaged in teaching, confirming, correcting, and governing my flock, and
- 39:46Speaker 1: my work of translating the Bible alone requires the devotion
- 39:49Speaker 1: of my whole time, from which work Satan, with all
- 39:53Speaker 1: his might, endeavors to withdraw me, as he has done
- 39:56Speaker 1: upon former occasions, that he might get me to leave
- 39:59Speaker 1: the best things to follow after those which are nothing
- 40:02Speaker 1: but vain and empty vapors. For my bondage of the
- 40:06Speaker 1: will proves to you how difficult to task it is
- 40:08Speaker 1: to cope with that proteus Erasmus, on account of his
- 40:12Speaker 1: vertibility and slipperiness of speech, in which alone is all
- 40:16Speaker 1: his confidence, he never remains in one position, but with
- 40:21Speaker 1: the deepest craft, evades every blow, and is like an
- 40:24Speaker 1: irritated hornet. Whereas miserable, I am compelled to stand my
- 40:30Speaker 1: ground in one position, and that upon unequal ground as
- 40:35Speaker 1: a sign to be spoken against. For whatever Luther writes
- 40:39Speaker 1: is condemned. Before ten years are at an end. Luther
- 40:42Speaker 1: is the only one who writes from envy, from pride,
- 40:46Speaker 1: from bitterness, and in a word, at the instigation of
- 40:49Speaker 1: Satan himself. But all who write against him write under
- 40:53Speaker 1: the influence of the Holy Spirit. Before my time it
- 40:57Speaker 1: required a great to do and an enormous expence to
- 41:00Speaker 1: canonize a dead monk. But now there is no easier
- 41:04Speaker 1: way for canonizing even living neroes in Caliculus than the
- 41:08Speaker 1: declaration of hatred against Luther. Only let a man hate
- 41:12Speaker 1: and bravely curse Luther, and that immediately makes him a saint.
- 41:16Speaker 1: Almost equal to our Holy Lord, the servant of the
- 41:19Speaker 1: servants of God. But who could ever believe that hatred
- 41:23Speaker 1: against Luther would be attended with so much power and advantage.
- 41:27Speaker 1: It fills the coffers of very beggars. Nay, it introduces
- 41:31Speaker 1: obscure moles and bats to the favor of princes and
- 41:34Speaker 1: of kings. It procures prebendaries and dignities. It procures bishoprics.
- 41:41Speaker 1: It procures the reputation of wisdom and of learning to
- 41:44Speaker 1: the most consummate asses. It procures to petty teachers of
- 41:49Speaker 1: grammar the authority of writing books. Nay, it procures the
- 41:53Speaker 1: crown of victory and of glory eternal in the heavens. Nay,
- 41:58Speaker 1: happy are all who hate Luth Luther, for they obtain
- 42:01Speaker 1: by that one vile and easy service those great and
- 42:05Speaker 1: mighty things which none of the most excellent of men
- 42:08Speaker 1: could ever obtain with all their wisdom and their virtues. No,
- 42:12Speaker 1: not even Christ himself, with all his own miracles and
- 42:15Speaker 1: the miracles of his apostles, and all his saints. Thus
- 42:19Speaker 1: are the scriptures fulfilled. Blessed are ye who persecute Luther,
- 42:24Speaker 1: For yours is the kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are ye
- 42:27Speaker 1: who curse and say all manner of evil against Luther,
- 42:31Speaker 1: Rejoice and be exceedingly glad in that day, for great
- 42:34Speaker 1: is your reward in heaven. For so persecuted they the Apostles,
- 42:38Speaker 1: the holy Bishops, John huss and others who were before Luther.
- 42:43Speaker 1: Wherefore I feel more and more persuaded that I shall
- 42:46Speaker 1: act rightly by answering Erasmus no farther. But I will
- 42:51Speaker 1: leave my testimony concerning him, even for his own sake,
- 42:54Speaker 1: that he might hereafter be unburdened from that concern, which,
- 42:58Speaker 1: as he complains, is completely death to him, namely that
- 43:02Speaker 1: he is commonly called a Lutheran. But as Christ liveth,
- 43:07Speaker 1: they do him a great injury who call him a Lutheran.
- 43:10Speaker 1: And I will defend him against his enemies, for I
- 43:13Speaker 1: can bear a true and faithful testimony that he is
- 43:16Speaker 1: no Lutheran but Erasmus himself. And if I could have
- 43:21Speaker 1: my will, Erasmus should be exploded from our schools altogether.
- 43:26Speaker 1: For if he be not pernicious, he is certainly useless,
- 43:30Speaker 1: because he, in truth, discusses and teaches nothing. Nor is
- 43:36Speaker 1: it at all advisable to accustomed Christian youth to the
- 43:39Speaker 1: diction of Erasmus, For they will learn to speak and
- 43:42Speaker 1: think of nothing with gravity and seriousness, but only to
- 43:46Speaker 1: laugh at all men as babblers in vain talkers. In
- 43:50Speaker 1: a word, they will learn nothing but to play the fool.
- 43:54Speaker 1: And from this levity and vanity they will, by degrees
- 43:58Speaker 1: grow tired of religion, till at last they will abhor
- 44:02Speaker 1: and profane it. Let him be left to the papists
- 44:05Speaker 1: only who are worthy of such an apostle, and whose
- 44:08Speaker 1: lips relish his dainties. May our Lord Jesus Christ, whom,
- 44:13Speaker 1: according to my faith Peter did not omit to call God,
- 44:18Speaker 1: by whose power I know and am persuaded that I
- 44:21Speaker 1: have often been delivered from death, and by faith in
- 44:25Speaker 1: whom I have undertaken and hitherto accomplished all these things
- 44:28Speaker 1: which excite the wonder even of my enemies. May this
- 44:32Speaker 1: same Jesus guard and deliver us unto the end. For
- 44:36Speaker 1: he is the Lord, our God, to whom, alone, with
- 44:40Speaker 1: the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory for ever
- 44:44Speaker 1: and ever Amen. End of the appendices recording by Jonathan Lang.
- 44:53Speaker 1: End of the Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther,
- 44:56Speaker 1: translated by Henry Cole,