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008 - Sections 76-90 Discussion Part II-a · Bondage of the Will

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  Speaker 1: Sections seventy six through ninety of the Bondage of the
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  Speaker 1: Will by Martin Luther, translated by Henry Cole. This LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain Discussion second part, section
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  Speaker 1: seventy six. The diatribe, having thus first cited numberless passages
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  Speaker 1: of scripture, as it were, a most formidable army of
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  Speaker 1: support of free will, in order that it might inspire
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  Speaker 1: courage into the confessors and martyrs, the men saints and
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  Speaker 1: women saints, and the side of free will, and strike
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  Speaker 1: terror into all the fearful and trembling deniers of and
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  Speaker 1: transgressors against free will, imagines to itself a poor, contemptible
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  Speaker 1: handful only standing up to oppose free will. And therefore
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  Speaker 1: it brings forward no more than two scriptures, which seem
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  Speaker 1: to be more prominent than the rest, to stand up
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  Speaker 1: on their side, intent only upon slaughter, and that to
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  Speaker 1: be executed without much trouble. The one of these passages
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  Speaker 1: is from Exodus nine thirteen, the Lord hardened the heart
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  Speaker 1: of Feroh. The other is from Malachi one two through three.
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  Speaker 1: J Have I loved, but esaw have I hated? Paul
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  Speaker 1: has explained at large both these passages in the Romans
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  Speaker 1: nine eleven through seventeen. But according to the judgment of
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  Speaker 1: the diatribe, what a detestable and useless discussion has he
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  Speaker 1: made of it? So that did not the Holy Spirit
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  Speaker 1: know a little something of rhetoric, there would be some
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  Speaker 1: danger lest being broken at the outset by such an
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  Speaker 1: artfully managed show of contempt. He should despair of his
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  Speaker 1: cause and openly yield to free will before the sound
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  Speaker 1: of the trumpet for the battle. But however, I, as
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  Speaker 1: a recruit, taken into the rear of those two passages,
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  Speaker 1: will display the forces on our side. Although where the
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  Speaker 1: state of the battle is such that one can put
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  Speaker 1: to flight ten thousand, there is no need of forces.
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  Speaker 1: If therefore one passage shall defeat free will, its numberless
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  Speaker 1: forces will profit it nothing Section seventy seven. In this
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  Speaker 1: part of the discussion, then the diatribe has found out
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  Speaker 1: a new way of eluding the most clear passages. That is,
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  Speaker 1: it will have that there is in the most simple
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  Speaker 1: and clear passages a trope. And as before, when speaking
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  Speaker 1: in defense of free will, it eluded all the imperative
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  Speaker 1: and conditional sentences of the law by means of conclusions,
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  Speaker 1: tact and similitudes added to them. So now, where it
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  Speaker 1: designs to speak against us, it twists all the words
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  Speaker 1: of the divine promise and declaration just which way it pleases,
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  Speaker 1: by means of a trope which it has invented, thus
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  Speaker 1: being everywhere an incomprehensible proteus. Nay, it demands with a
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  Speaker 1: haughty brow, that this permission should be granted, it saying
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  Speaker 1: that we ourselves, when pressed closely, are accustomed to get
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  Speaker 1: off by means of invented tropes, as in these instances
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  Speaker 1: on which thou wilt stretch forth thine hand Exodus eight five.
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  Speaker 1: That is, Grace shall extend thine hand, on which it
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  Speaker 1: will make you a new heart. Ezekiel eighteen thirty one,
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  Speaker 1: that is, Grace shall make you a new heart, and
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  Speaker 1: the like. It seems therefore an indignity offered that Luther
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  Speaker 1: should be allowed to give forth an interpretationation so forced
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  Speaker 1: and twisted, and that it should not be far more
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  Speaker 1: allowable to follow the interpretations of the most approved doctors.
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  Speaker 1: You see then, that here the contention is not for
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  Speaker 1: the text itself, no nor for conclusions and similitudes, but
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  Speaker 1: for tropes and interpretations. When then, shall we ever have
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  Speaker 1: any plain and pure text without tropes and conclusions either
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  Speaker 1: for or against free will? Has the scriptures no such
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  Speaker 1: texts anywhere? And shall the cause of free will remain
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  Speaker 1: forever in doubt like a reed shaken with the wind,
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  Speaker 1: as being that which can be supported by no certain text,
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  Speaker 1: but which stands upon conclusions in tropes only introduced by
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  Speaker 1: men mutually disagreeing with each other. But let our sentiment
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  Speaker 1: rather be this, that neither conclusion nor trope is to
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  Speaker 1: be admitted into the scriptures, unless the evident strife of
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  Speaker 1: the particulars, or the absurdity of any particular as militating
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  Speaker 1: against an article of faith require it, but that the simple,
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  Speaker 1: pure and natural meaning of the words is to be
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  Speaker 1: adhered to, which is according to the rules of grammar,
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  Speaker 1: and to that common use of speech which God has
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  Speaker 1: given unto men. For if every one be allowed, according
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  Speaker 1: to his own lust, to invent conclusions in tropes in
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  Speaker 1: the scriptures, what will the whole scripture together be but
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  Speaker 1: a reed shaken with the wind, or a kind of vertumness.
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  Speaker 1: Then in truth, nothing could to a certainty be determined
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  Speaker 1: on or proved concerning any one article of the faith
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  Speaker 1: which he might not subject to cavillation by means of
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  Speaker 1: some trope, But every trope ought to be avoided as
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  Speaker 1: the most deadly poison, which is not absolutely required by
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  Speaker 1: the scriptures itself. See what happened to that trope inventor
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  Speaker 1: Origin in expounding the scriptures? What just occasion did he
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  Speaker 1: give the calumniator porphyry to say, those who favor Origin
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  Speaker 1: can be no great friends of uranymus What happened to
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  Speaker 1: the Arians by means of the trope according to which
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  Speaker 1: they made Christ God nominally? What happened in our own
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  Speaker 1: times to those new prophets concerning the words of Christ?
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  Speaker 1: This is my body. One invented a trope in the
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  Speaker 1: word this, another in the word is, another in the
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  Speaker 1: word body. I have therefore observed this that all heresies
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  Speaker 1: and errors in the scriptures have not arisen from the
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  Speaker 1: simplicity of the words, as is the general report throughout
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  Speaker 1: the world, but from men not attending to the simplicity
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  Speaker 1: of the words, and hatching tropes and conclusions out of
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  Speaker 1: their own brain. For example, on whichsoever thou wilt stretch
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  Speaker 1: forth thine hand ay, as far as I can remember,
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  Speaker 1: never put upon these words so violent an interpretation as
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  Speaker 1: to say, grace shall extend Thine hand on whichsoever it
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  Speaker 1: will make yourselves a new heart. That is, grace shall
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  Speaker 1: make you a new heart, and the like. Although the
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  Speaker 1: diatribe produces me thus in a public work, from being
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  Speaker 1: so carried away with and eluded by its own tropes
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  Speaker 1: and conclusions, that it knows not what it says about anything.
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  Speaker 1: But I said this, that by the words stretch forth
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  Speaker 1: Thine hand, simply taken as they are, without tropes or conclusions,
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  Speaker 1: nothing else is signified. Then what is required of us
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  Speaker 1: in the stretching forth of our hand, and what we
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  Speaker 1: ought to do according to the nature of an imperative
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  Speaker 1: expression with Grammarians and in the common use of speech.
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  Speaker 1: But the diatribe, not attending to this simplicity of the word,
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  Speaker 1: but with violence, adducing conclusions in tropes, interprets the words, thus,
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  Speaker 1: stretch forth Thine hand. That is, thou art able by
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  Speaker 1: thine own power to stretch forth Thine hand make you
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  Speaker 1: a new heart. That is, you are able to make
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  Speaker 1: a new heart. Believe in Christ. That is, you are
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  Speaker 1: able to believe in Christ. So that with it, what
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  Speaker 1: is spoken imperatively and what is spoken indicatively is the
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  Speaker 1: same thing, or else it is prepared to aver that
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  Speaker 1: the scripture is ridiculous and to no purpose. And these interpretations,
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  Speaker 1: which no grammarian will bear, must not be called in
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  Speaker 1: theologians violent or invented. But the productions of the most
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  Speaker 1: approved doctors reset by so many ages. But it is
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  Speaker 1: easy for the diatribe to admit and follow tropes in
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  Speaker 1: this part of the discussion, seeing that it cares not
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  Speaker 1: at all whether what is said be certain or uncertain. Nay,
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  Speaker 1: it aims at making all things uncertain, for its design
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  Speaker 1: is that the doctrines concerning free will should be left alone,
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  Speaker 1: rather than searched into. Therefore, it is enough for it
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  Speaker 1: to be enabled in any way to avoid those passages
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  Speaker 1: by which it finds itself closely pressed. But as for me,
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  Speaker 1: who am maintaining a serious cause, and who am inquiring
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  Speaker 1: what is to the greatest certainty the truth for the
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  Speaker 1: establishing of consciences, I must act very differently. For me,
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  Speaker 1: I say, it is not enough that you say there
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  Speaker 1: may be a trope here, But I must inquire whether
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  Speaker 1: there ought to be or can be a trope there.
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  Speaker 1: For if you cannot prove that there must of necessity
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  Speaker 1: be a trope in that passage, you will affect nothing
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  Speaker 1: at all. There stands there this word of God. I
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  Speaker 1: will harden the heart perh Exodus four twenty one, Romans ninth,
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  Speaker 1: seventeen through eighteen. If you say that it can be
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  Speaker 1: understood or ought to be understood, thus I will permit
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  Speaker 1: it to be hardened. I hear you say, indeed, that
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  Speaker 1: it may be so understood, And I hear this trope
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  Speaker 1: used by every one. I destroyed you because I did
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  Speaker 1: not correct you immediately when you began to do wrong.
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  Speaker 1: But here there is no place for that interpretation. We
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  Speaker 1: are not here inquiring whether that trope be in use.
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  Speaker 1: We are not inquiring whether any one can use it
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  Speaker 1: in that passage of Paul. But this is the point
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  Speaker 1: of inquiry, whether or not it be sure and safe
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  Speaker 1: to use this passage plainly as it stands, and whether
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  Speaker 1: Paul would have it so used. We are not inquiring
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  Speaker 1: into the use of an indifferent reader of this passage,
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  Speaker 1: but into the use of the author, Paul himself. What
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  Speaker 1: will you do with a conscience inquiring? Thus, behold God,
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  Speaker 1: as the author saith, I will harden the heart of Pharaoh.
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  Speaker 1: The meaning of the word harden is plain and well known.
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  Speaker 1: But a man who reads this passage tells me that
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  Speaker 1: in this place to harden signifies to give an occasion
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  Speaker 1: of becoming hardened, because the sinner is not immediately corrected.
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  Speaker 1: But by what authority does he this? With what design?
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  Speaker 1: By what necessity? Is the natural signification of this passage
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  Speaker 1: thus twisted? And suppose the reader and interpreter should be
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  Speaker 1: in error, how shall it be proved that such a
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  Speaker 1: turn ought to be given to this passage? It is dangerous,
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  Speaker 1: nay impious. Thus to twist the word of God without
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  Speaker 1: necessity and without authority, would you then comfort a poor
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  Speaker 1: soul thus laboring in this way? Origin thought so, and
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  Speaker 1: so cease to search into such things, because they are
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  Speaker 1: curious and superfluous. But he would answer you this admonition
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  Speaker 1: should have been given to Moses or Paul before they wrote,
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  Speaker 1: and so also to God himself, For it is they
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  Speaker 1: who vex us with these curious and superfluous scriptures Section
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  Speaker 1: seventy eight. This miserable scapegoat of tropes therefore profits the
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  Speaker 1: diatribe nothing, But this proteus of ours must here be
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  Speaker 1: held fast and compelled to satisfy us fully concerning the
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  Speaker 1: trope in this passage, and that by scriptures the most clear,
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  Speaker 1: or by miracles the most evident. For as to its
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  Speaker 1: mere opinion, even though supported by the labored industry of
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  Speaker 1: all ages, we give no credit to that whatever. But
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  Speaker 1: we urge on and press it home, that there can
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  Speaker 1: be here no trope whatever, but that the word of
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  Speaker 1: God is to be understood according to the plain meaning
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  Speaker 1: of the words. For it is not given unto us,
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  Speaker 1: as the diatribe persuades itself to turn the words of
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  Speaker 1: God backwards and forwards according to our own lust. If
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  Speaker 1: that were the case, what is there in the whole
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  Speaker 1: scripture that might not be resolved into the philosophy of Anaxagoras,
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  Speaker 1: that anything might be made from anything? And thus I
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  Speaker 1: will say God created the heavens and the earth, that is,
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  Speaker 1: he stationed them, but did not make them out of nothing.
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  Speaker 1: Or he created the heavens in the earth, that is,
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  Speaker 1: the angels and the devils, or the just and the wicked.
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  Speaker 1: Who I ask, if this were the case, might not
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  Speaker 1: become a theologian at the first opening of a book let.
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  Speaker 1: This therefore be a fixed and settled point that, since
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  Speaker 1: the diatribe cannot prove that there is a trope in
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  Speaker 1: these our passages which it utterly destroys. It is compelled
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  Speaker 1: to cede to us that the words are to be
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  Speaker 1: understood according to their plain meaning, even though it should
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  Speaker 1: prove that the same trope is contained in all the
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  Speaker 1: other passages of Scripture and used in common by every one.
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  Speaker 1: And by the gaining of this one point, all our
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  Speaker 1: arguments are at the same time defended, which the diatribe
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  Speaker 1: designed to refute, And thus its refutation is found to
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  Speaker 1: effect nothing, to do nothing, to be nothing. Whenever. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: this passage of Moses, I will harden the heart of
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  Speaker 1: Pharaoh is interpreted. Thus my long suffering, by which I
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  Speaker 1: bear with the sinner, leads indeed others unto repentance, but
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  Speaker 1: it shall render Pharaoh more hardened in iniquity. It is
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  Speaker 1: a pretty interpretation, but it is not proved that it
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  Speaker 1: ought to be so interpreted. But I am not content
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  Speaker 1: with what is said. I must have the proof, and
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  Speaker 1: that also of Paul, he hath mercy on whom he
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  Speaker 1: will have mercy, and whom he will harden, He hardeneth
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  Speaker 1: Romans nine eighteen is plausibly interpreted. Thus, that is God
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  Speaker 1: hardens when he does not immediately punish the sinner, and
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  Speaker 1: he has mercy when he immediately invites to repentance by afflictions.
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  Speaker 1: But how is this interpretation proved? And also that of
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  Speaker 1: Isaiah sixty three seventeen. Why it hast thou made us
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  Speaker 1: to err from thy ways and harden our heart from
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  Speaker 1: thy fear? Be it so that Jerome interprets it. Thus
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  Speaker 1: from Origin he is said to make to err, who
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  Speaker 1: does not immediately recall from error? But who shall certify
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  Speaker 1: us that Jerome and Origin interpret rightly. It is therefore
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  Speaker 1: a settled determination with me not to argue upon the
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  Speaker 1: authority of any teacher whatever, but upon that of the
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  Speaker 1: scripture alone. What origins and Jerome's does the diatribe then,
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  Speaker 1: forgetting its own determination set before us, especially when among
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  Speaker 1: all the ecclesiastical writers there are scarcely any who have
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  Speaker 1: handled the holy scriptures less to the purpose and more
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  Speaker 1: absurdly than Origin and Jerome. In a word, this liberty
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  Speaker 1: of interpretation by a new and unheard of kind of
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  Speaker 1: grammar goes to confound all things, so that when God
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  Speaker 1: saith I will harden the heart of Pharaoh, you are
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  Speaker 1: to change the persons and understand it. Thus, Pharaoh hardens
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  Speaker 1: himself by my long suffering. God hardeneth our hearts, that is,
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  Speaker 1: we harden ourselves by God's deferring the punishment. Thou, o, Lord,
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  Speaker 1: hast made us to err, that is, we have made
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  Speaker 1: ourselves to err by Thy not punishing us. So also
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  Speaker 1: God's having mercy no longer signifies his giving grace or
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  Speaker 1: showing mercy, or forgiving sin, or justifying or delivering from evil,
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  Speaker 1: but on the contrary, signifies bringing on evil and punishing.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, by these tropes matters will come to this.
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  Speaker 1: You may say that God had mercy upon the children
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  Speaker 1: of Israel when he sent them into Assyria and to Babylon,
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  Speaker 1: because he there punished the sinners and there invited them
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  Speaker 1: by afflictions to repentance. And that, on the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: when He delivered them and brought them back, he had
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  Speaker 1: not then mercy upon them, but hardened them. That is,
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  Speaker 1: by his long suffering and mercy he gave them an
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  Speaker 1: occasion of becoming hardened. And also God's sending the Savior
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  Speaker 1: Christ into the world will not be said to be
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  Speaker 1: the mercy but the hardening of God, because by this
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  Speaker 1: mercy he gave men an occasion of hardening themselves. On
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  Speaker 1: the other hand, his destroying Jerusalem, in scattering the Jews
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  Speaker 1: even unto this day, is his having mercy on them,
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  Speaker 1: because he punishes the sinners and invites them to repentance. Moreover,
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  Speaker 1: his carrying the saints away into Heaven on the day
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  Speaker 1: of judgment will not be mercy but in hardening, because
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  Speaker 1: by his long suffering he will give them an occasion
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  Speaker 1: of abusing it. But his thrusting the wicked down to
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  Speaker 1: Hell will be his mercy, because he punishes the sinners.
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  Speaker 1: Who I pray you ever heard of such examples of
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  Speaker 1: the mercy and wrath of God as these, And be
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  Speaker 1: it so that good men are made better both by
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  Speaker 1: the long suffering and by the severity of God. Yet,
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  Speaker 1: when we are speaking of the good and the bad promiscuously,
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  Speaker 1: these tropes, by an utter perversion of the common manner
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  Speaker 1: of speaking, will make out of the mercy of God
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  Speaker 1: his wrath and his wrath out of his mercy, seeing
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  Speaker 1: that they call it the wrath of God when he
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  Speaker 1: does good, and his mercy when he afflicts. Moreover, if
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  Speaker 1: God be said then to harden when he does good
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  Speaker 1: and endures with long suffering, and then to have mercy
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  Speaker 1: when he afflicts and punishes. Why is he more particularly
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  Speaker 1: said to harden Pharaoh than to harden the children of Israel,
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  Speaker 1: or then the whole world? Did he not do good
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  Speaker 1: to the children of Israel? Does he not do good
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  Speaker 1: to the whole world? Does he not bear with the wicked?
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  Speaker 1: Does he not reign upon the evil and upon the good?
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  Speaker 1: Why is he rather said to have mercy upon the
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  Speaker 1: children of Israel than upon Pharaoh? Did he not afflict
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  Speaker 1: the children of Israel in Egypt and in the desert?
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  Speaker 1: And be it so that some abuse and some rightly
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  Speaker 1: use the goodness and the wrath of God. Yet, according
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  Speaker 1: to your definition, to harden is the same as to
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  Speaker 1: indulge the wicked by long suffering and goodness, And to
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  Speaker 1: have mercy is not to indulge, but to visit and punish. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: with reference to God, he by his continual goodness, does
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  Speaker 1: nothing but harden, and by his perpetual punishment does nothing
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  Speaker 1: but show mercy Section seventy nine. But this is the
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  Speaker 1: most excellent statement of all. That God is said to
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  Speaker 1: harden when he indulges sinners by long suffering, but to
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  Speaker 1: have mercy upon them when he visits and afflicts, and thus,
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  Speaker 1: by severity invites to repentance. What I ask, did God
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  Speaker 1: leave undone in afflicting, punishing, and calling Pharaoh to repentance?
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  Speaker 1: Are there not in his dealings with him ten plagues recorded?
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  Speaker 1: If therefore your definitions stand good, that showing mercy is
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  Speaker 1: punishing and calling the sinner immediately, God certainly had mercy
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  Speaker 1: upon Pharaoh. Why then does not God say I will
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  Speaker 1: have mercy upon Pharaoh, whereas he saith, I will harden
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  Speaker 1: the heart of Pharaoh. For in the very act of
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  Speaker 1: having mercy upon him, that is, as you say, afflicting
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  Speaker 1: and punishing him, he saith I will harden him, that is,
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  Speaker 1: as you say, I will bear with him and do
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  Speaker 1: him good. What can be heard of more enormous? Where
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  Speaker 1: are now your tropes? Where are your origins? Where are
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  Speaker 1: your jeromes? Where are all your most approved doctors? Whom
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  Speaker 1: one poor creature Luther daringly contradicts. But at this rate
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  Speaker 1: the flesh must unawares impel the man to talk who
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  Speaker 1: trifles with the words of God and believes not their
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  Speaker 1: solemn importance. The text of Moses itself therefore incontrovertibly proves
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  Speaker 1: that here these tropes are mere inventions and things of naught,
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  Speaker 1: and that by those words I will harden the heart
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  Speaker 1: of Pharaoh. Something else is signified, far different from and
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  Speaker 1: of greater importance than doing good or affliction and punishment,
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  Speaker 1: because we cannot deny that both were tried upon Pharaoh
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  Speaker 1: with the greatest care and concern. For what wrath and
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  Speaker 1: punishment could be more instant than his being stricken by
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: so many wonders in so many plagues that, as Moses
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: himself testifies, the like had never been Nay, even Pharaoh himself, repenting,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: was moved by them more than once. But he was
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: not effectually moved, nor did he persevere. And what long
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: suffering or goodness of God could be greater than his
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: taking away the plagues so easily, hardening his sin, so often,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: so often bringing back the good, and so often taking
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: away the evil. Yet neither is of any avail. He
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: said still, Saith, I will harden the heart of Pharaoh.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: You see therefore, that even if your hardening and mercy,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: that is, your glosses and tropes, be granted to the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: greatest extent, as supported by use and by example, and
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: as seen in the case of Pharaoh, there is yet
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: a hardening that still remains, And that the hardening of
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: which Moses speaks must of necessity be one, and that
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: of which you dream another Section eighty. But since I
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: have to fight with fiction, framers and ghosts, let me
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: turn to ghost raising. Also let me suppose, which is
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: an impossibility that the trope of which the diatribe dreams
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: avails in this passage, in order that I may see
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: which way the diatribe will allude the being compelled to
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: declare that all things take place according to the will
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: of God alone and from necessity in us, And how
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: it will clear God from being himself the author and
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: cause of our becoming hardened. For if it be true
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: that God is then said to harden when he bears
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: with long suffering and does not immediately punish, these two
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: positions still stand firm. First, that man, nevertheless of necessity
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: serves sin. For when it is granted that free will
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: cannot will anything good, which kind of free will the
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: diatribe undertook to prove, then by the goodness of a
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: long suffering God, it becomes nothing better, but of necessity worse.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Wherefore it still remains that all that we do is
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: done from necessity. And next that God appears to be
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: just as cruel in this bearing with us by his
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: long suffering, as he does by being preached as willing
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: to harden by that will inscrutable. For when he sees
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: that free will cannot will good, but becomes worse by
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: his enduring with long suffering, by this very long suffering,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: he appears to be most cruel and to delight in
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: our miseries, seeing that he could remedy them if he willed,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: and might not thus endure with long suffering if he willed. Nay,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: that he could not thus endure unless he willed, For
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: who can compel him against his will? That will, therefore,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: without which nothing is done, being admitted, and it being
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: admitted also that free will cannot will anything good. All
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: is advanced in vain, that is advanced either in excusation
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: of God or in accusation of free will. For the
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: language of free will is ever this I cannot and
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: God will not. What can I do? If He have
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: mercy upon me by affliction, I shall be nothing benefited,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: but must of necessity become worse unless he give me
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: his spirit. But this he gives me not, though he
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: might give it me if he willed. It is certain
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: therefore that he wills not to give Section eighty one.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Nor do the similitudes adduced make anything to the purpose.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Where it is said by the diatribe, as under the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: same sun, mud is hardened and wax melted, as by
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: the same shower the cultivated earth brings forth fruit, and
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the uncultivated earth thorns. So by the same long suffering
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: of God, some are hardened and some converted. For we
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: are not now dividing free will into two different natures,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and making the one like mud, the other like wax,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the one like cultivated earth, the other like uncultivated earth.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: But we are speaking concerning that one free will, equally
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: impotent in all men, which, as it cannot will good,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: is nothing but mud, nothing but uncultivated earth. Nor does
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Paul say that God, as the potter, makes one vessel
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: unto honor and another unto dishonor out of different kinds
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: of clay, but he saith out of the same lump,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: and so forth Romans nine twenty one. Therefore, as mud
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: always becomes harder, and uncultivated earth always becomes more thorny.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Even so, free will always becomes worse, both under the
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: hardening sun of long suffering and under the softening shower
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: of rain. If therefore free will the of one, and
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: the same nature and impotency in all men, no reason
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: can be given why it should attain and to grace
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: in one and not in another, if nothing else be
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: preached to all but the goodness of a long suffering
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and the punishment of a mercy showing God. For it
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: is a granted position that free will in all is
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: alike defined to be that which cannot will good. And indeed,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: if it were not so, God could not elect any one,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: nor would there be any place left for election, but
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: for free will only as choosing or refusing the long
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: suffering and anger of God. And if God be thus
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: robbed of his power and wisdom to elect, what will
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: there be remaining but that idle fortune under the name
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: of which all things take place at random. Nay, we
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: shall at length come to this, that men may be
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: saved and damned without God's knowing anything at all about it,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: as not having determined by certain election who should be
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: saved and who should be damned, but having set before
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: all men in general, his hardening goodness and long suffering,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: and his mercy showing correction and punishment, and left them
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: to choose for themselves whether they would be saved or damned,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: while he, in the meantime, should be gone. As Homer
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: says to an Ethiopian feast, it is just such a
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: God as this that Aristotle pains out to us, that is,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: who sleeps himself and leaves every one to use or
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: abuse his long suffering and punishment just as he will.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Nor can reason of herself form any other judgment than
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the diatribe here does. For as she herself snores over
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: and looks with contempt upon divine things, she thinks concerning God,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that he sleeps and snores over them too, not exercising
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: his wisdom, will and presence in choosing, separating and inspiring,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: but leaving the troublesome and irksome business of accepting or
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: refusing his long suffering and his anger entirely to men.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: This is what we come to when we attempt by
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: human reason to limit and make excuses. Is for God
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: not revering the secrets of his majesty, but curiously prying
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: into them, being lost in the glory of them. Instead
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: of making one excuse for God, we pour forth a
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: thousand blasphemies, And forgetting ourselves we prate like madmen, both
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: against God and against ourselves. When we are all the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: while supposing that we are with a great deal of wisdom,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: speaking both for God and for ourselves. Here, then you
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: see what that trope and gloss of the diatribe will
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: make of God. And moreover, how excellently consistent the diatribe
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: is with itself, which before, by its one definition, made
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: free will one and the same in all men, and now,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: in the course of its argumentation forgetting its own definition,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: makes one free will to be cultivated and the other
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: uncultivated according to the difference of works of manners and
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: of men, thus making two different free wills, the one
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: that which cannot do good, the other that which can
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: do good, and that by its own powers before grace,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: whereas its former definition declared that it could not by
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: those its own powers, will anything good whatever. Hence therefore
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: comes to pass that while we do not ascribe unto
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: the will of God, only the will and power of hardening,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: showing mercy and doing all things, we ascribe unto free
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: will itself the power of doing all things without grace,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: which nevertheless we declared to be unable to do any
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: good whatever without grace. The similitudes therefore, of the Sun
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: and of the shower make nothing at all to the purpose.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: The Christian would use those similitudes more rightly if he
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: were to make the sun and the shower to represent
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: the Gospel, as Psalm nineteen does, and as does also
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Hebrews six seven, and were to make the cultivated earth
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: to represent the elect and the uncultivated the reprobate, for
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: the former are by the word edified and made better,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: while the latter are offended and made worse. Or if
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: this distinction be not made, then as the free will itself,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: that is, in all men, uncultivated earth, and the Kingdom
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: of Satan section eighty two. But let us now inquire
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: into the reason why this trope was invented in this passage.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: It appears absurd, says the diatribe, that God, who is
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: not only just but also good, should be said to
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: have hardened the heart of a man, in order that
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: by his iniquity he might show forth his own power.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: The same also occurred to Origin, who confesses that the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: occasion of becoming hardened was given of God that throws
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: all the fault upon Pharaoh. He has moreover made a
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: remark upon that which the Lord saith. For this very
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: purpose have I raised thee up? He does not say,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: he observes, for this very purpose have I made thee?
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Otherwise Pharaoh could not have been wicked if God had
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: made him such an one as he was. For God
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: beheld all his works, and they were very good. Thus
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the diatribe. It appears then, that one of the principle
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: causes why the words of Moses and of Paul are
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: not received is their absurdity. But against what article of
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: faith does that absurdity militate, or who is offended at it?
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: It is human reason that is offended. Who, being blind, deaf, impious,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: and sacriligious in all the words and works of God, is,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: in the case of this passage, introduced as a judge
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: of the words and works of God. According to the
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: same argument of absurdity, you will deny all the articles
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: of faith, because it is of all things the most absurd,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: And as Paul saith foolishness to the Gentiles and a
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: stumbling block to the Jews, that God should be a man,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the son of a virgin, crucified, and sitting at the
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: right hand of his father. It is, I say, absurd
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: to believe such things. Therefore, let us invent some tropes
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: with the arians, and say that Christ is not truly God.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Let us invent some tropes with the manichees, and say
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: that He is not truly manned, but a phantom introduced
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: by means of a virgin, or a reflection conveyed by
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: glass which fell and was crucified. And in this way
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: we shall handle the scriptures to excellent purpose. Indeed, after all,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: then the tropes amount to nothing. Nor is the absurdity avoided,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: for it still remains absurd according to the judgment of reason,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: that God, who is just and good, should exact of
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: free will impossibilities, and that when free will cannot will
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: good and of necessity serve sin, that sin should yet
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: be laid to its charge, And that moreover, when He
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: does not give the spirit, he should nevertheless act so
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: severely and unmercifully as to harden or permit to become hardened.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: These things reason will still say are not becoming of God,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: good and merciful. Thus they too far exceed her capacity
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: nor can she so bring herself into subjection as to
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: believe and judge that the God who does such things
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: is good. But setting as de faith, she wants to
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: feel out and see and comprehend how he can be
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: good and not cruel. But she will comprehend that, when
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: this shall be said of God, he hardens no one,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: he damns no one, but he has mercy upon all,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: He saves all, and he has so utterly destroyed Hell
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: that no future punishment need be dreaded. It is thus
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: that reason blusters and contends in attempting to clear God
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and to defend him as just and good. But faith
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: and the spirit judge otherwise. Who believe that God would
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: be good even though he should destroy all men? And
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: to what prophet is it to weary ourselves with all
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: these reasonings in order that we might throw the fault
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: of hardening upon free will. Let all the free will
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: in the world do all it can with all its powers,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: and yet it never will give one proof either that
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: it can avoid being hardened where God gives not his
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: spirit or merit mercy where it is left to its
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: own powers. And what does its signify whether it be
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: hardened or deserve being hardened, if the hardening be of necessity,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: as long as it remains in that impotency, in which
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: according to the testimony of the diatribe, it cannot will good.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Since therefore the absurdity is not taken out of the
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: way by these tropes, or if it be taken out
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: of the way, greater absurdities still are introduced in their stead,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: and all things are ascribed unto free will. Away with
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: such useless and seducing tropes, and let us cleave close
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: to the pure and simple word of God Section eighty three.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: As to the other point, that those things which God
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: has made are very good, and that God did not
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: say for this purpose have I made thee? But for
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: this purpose have I raised thee up. I observe first
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: of all that this Genesis one, concerning the works of
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: God being very good, was said before the fall of man,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: but it is recorded directly after in Genesis three, how
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: man became evil when God departed from him and left
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: him to himself. And from this one man thus corrupt,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: all the wicked were born, and Pharaoh also as Paul Saith,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: we were all by nature the children of wrath, even
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: as others Ephesians two eight. Therefore God made Pharaoh wicked,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: that is, from a wicked and corrupt seed, as he
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: saith in the Proverbs of Solomon sixteen four, God hath
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked, for
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: the day of evil. That is, not by creating evil
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: in them, but by forming them out of a corrupt
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: seed and ruling over them. This therefore is not a
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: just conclusion. God made man wicked, therefore he is not wicked,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: for how can he not be wicked from a wicked seed?
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: As Psalm fifty one five saith, behold, I was conceived
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: in sin? And Job fourteen four. Who can make that
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: clean which is conceived from unclean seed? For although God
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: did not make sin, yet he ceases not to form
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: and multiply that nature, which from the spirit being withdrawn
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: is defiled by sin. And as it is when a
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: carpenter makes statues of corrupt wood, so such as the
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: nature is, such are the men made when God creates
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: informs them out of that nature. Again, if you understand
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: the words they were very good as referring to the
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: works of God after the fall, you will be pleased
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: to observe that this was said not with reference to us,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: but with reference to God. For it is not said
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: man saw all the things that God had made, and
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: behold they were very good. Many things seem very good
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: unto God and are very good, which seem unto us
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: very evil, and are considered to be very evil. Thus afflictions, evils, errors, hell, Nay,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: all the very best works of God are in the
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: sight of the world very evil and even damnable. What
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: is better than Christ and the Gospel? But what is
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: more execrated by the world? And therefore, how those things
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: are good in the sight of God which are evil
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: in our sight is known only unto God and unto
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: those who see with the eyes of God, that is,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: who have the spirit. But there is no need of
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: argumentation so close as this. The preceding answer is sufficient
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Section eighty four. But here perhaps it will be asked,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: how can God be said to work evil in us
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: in the same way as he is said to harden us,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: to give us up to our own desires, to cause
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: us to err? And so forth we ought, indeed, to
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: be content with the word of God, and simply to
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: believe what that saith, Seeing that the works of God
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: are utterly unspeakable, but however, in compliance with reason, that
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: is human foolery, I will just act the fool and
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: the stupid fellow for once, and try, by a little
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: babbling if I can produce any effect upon her. First,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: then both reason and the diatribe grant that God works
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: all in all, and that without him nothing is either
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: done or effective, because He is omnipotent, and because therefore
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: all things come under his omnipotence. As Paul saith to
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the Ephesians. Now, then Satan and man, being fallen and
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: left of God, cannot will good, that is, those things
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: which please God or which God wills, but are ever
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: turned the way of their own desires, so that they
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: cannot but seek their own. This. Therefore, their will and
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: nature so turned from God cannot be un nothing. Nor
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: are Satan and the wicked man unnohing, nor are the
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: nature and the will which they have annohing, although it
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: be a nature corrupt and averse that remnant of nature. Therefore,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: in Satan and the wicked man, of which we speak
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: as being, the creature and the work of God is
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: not less subject to the divine omnipotence and action than
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: all the rest of the creatures. And works of God.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Since therefore God moves and does all in all, He
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: necessarily moves and does all in Satan and the wicked man.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: But he so does all in them as they themselves are,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: and as he finds them, that is, as they are
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: themselves a verse and evil. Being carried along by that
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: motion of the divine omnipotence, they cannot but do what
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: is a verse and evil, just as it is with
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: a man driving lame horse on one foot or lame
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: on two feet, He drives him just so as the
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: horse himself is. That is, the horse moves badly, But
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: what can the man do he is driving along this
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: kind of horse together with sound horses, he indeed goes badly,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: and the rest well. But it cannot be otherwise unless
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: the horse be made sound. Here then you see that
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: when God works in and by evil men, the evils
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: themselves are in wrought. But yet God cannot do evil,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: although he thus works the evils by evil men, because
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: being good himself, he cannot do evil. But he uses
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: evil instruments which cannot escape the sway and motion of hisipotence.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: The fault therefore is in the instruments which God allows
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: not to remain actionless, seeing that the evils are done
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: as God himself moves, just in the same manner as
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: a carpenter would cut badly with a saw edged or
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: broken edged axe. Hence it is that the wicked man
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: cannot but always err and sin, because, being carried along
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: by the motion of the divine omnipotence, he is not
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: permitted to remain motionless, but must will, desire and act
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: according to his nature. All this is fixed certainty if
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: we believe that God is omnipotent. It is moreover as
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: certain that the wicked man is the creature of God.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Though being averse and left to himself without the spirit
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: of God, he cannot will or do good. For the
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: omnipotence of God makes it that the wicked man cannot
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: evade the motion and action of God, but being of
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: necessity subject to it, he yields. Though his corruption and
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: aversion to God makes him that he cannot be carried
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: along moved unto good. God cannot suspend his omnipotence on
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: account of his aversion, nor can the wicked man change
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: his aversion. Wherefore it is that he must continue of
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: necessity to sin and err until he be amended by
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: the spirit of God. Meanwhile, in all these things, Satan
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: goes on to reign in peace and keeps his palace
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: undisturbed under this motion of the divine omnipotence Section eighty five,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: but now follows the act itself of hardening, which is
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: thus the wicked man. As we have said, like his prince,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: Satan is turned totally the way of selfishness and his own.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: He seeks not God nor cares for the things of God.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: He seeks his own riches, his own glory, his own doings,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: his own wisdom, his own power, and in a word,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: his own kingdom, and wills only to enjoy them in peace.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: And if any one oppose him or wish to diminish
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: any of these things with the same aversion to God
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: under which he seeks these with the same, he is moved,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: enraged and roused to indignation against his adversary. And he
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: is as much unable to overcome this rage as he
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: is to overcome his desire of self seeking. And he
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: can no more avoid this seeking than he can avoid
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: his own existence. And this he cannot do, as being
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: the creature of God, though a corrupt one the same
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: is that fury of the world against the Gospel of God.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: For by the gospel comes that stronger than he who
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: overcomes the quiet possessor of the palace and condemns those
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: desires of glory, of riches, of wisdom, of self righteousness,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: and of all things in which he trusts. This very
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: irritation of the wicked, when God speaks and acts contrary
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: to what they willed, is their hardening and their galling weight.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: For as they are in this state of aversion, from
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: the very corruption of nature, so they become more and
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: more averse, and worse and worse as this aversion is
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: opposed or turned out of its way. And thus, when
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: God threatened to take away from the wicked Pharaoh his power,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: he irritated and aggravated him, and hardened his heart the
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: more the more he came to him with his word
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: by Moses making known his intention to take away his
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: kingdom and to deliver his own people from his power.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Because he did not give him his spirit within, but
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: permitted his wicked corruption under the dominion of Satan, to
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: grow angry, to swell with pride, to burn with rage,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: and to go on still in a certain secure contempt
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: section eighty six. Let no one think therefore, that God,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: where he is said to harden or to work evil
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: in us, For to harden is to do evil, So
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: does the evil, as though He created evil in us anew,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: in the same way as a malignant liquor cellar, being
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: himself bad, would pour poison into or mix it up
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: in a vessel that was not bad, where the vessel
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: itself did nothing but receive or passively accomplish the purpose
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: of the malignity of the poison mixer. For when people
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: hear it said by us that God works in us
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: both good and evil, and that we, from mere necessity,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: passively submit to the working of God, they seem to
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: imagine that a man who is good or not evil
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: in himself is passive while God works evil in him,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: not rightly, considering that God is far from being inactive
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: in all his creatures and never suffers any one of
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: them to keep holiday. But whoever wishes to understand these things,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: let him think thus that God works evil in us,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: that is, by us, not from the fault of God,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: but from the fault of evil in us, that is,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: as we are evil by nature. God who is truly good,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: carrying us along by his own action, according to the
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: nature of his own omnipotence, cannot do otherwise than do
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: evil by us as instruments, though he himself be good,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: though by his wisdom he overrules that evil well to
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: his own glory and to our salvation. Thus, God, finding
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: the will of Satan evil, not creating it so, but
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: leaving it. While Satan sinningly commits the evil, carries it
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: along by his working, and moves it which way he will,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: though that will ceases not to be evil by this
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: motion of God. In this same way, also David spoke
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: concerning Chemae let him curse, for God hath bidden him
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: to curse David Second Samuel sixteen ten. How could God
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: bid to curse an action so evil and virulent there
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: was nowhere an external precept to that effect. David therefore
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: looks to this The omnipotent God saith, and it is done.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: That is, he does all things by his external word. Wherefore,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: here the divine action and omnipotence, the good God himself
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: carries along the will of Chamae, already evil, together with
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: all his members, and before incensed against David. And while
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: David is thus opportunely situated and deserving such blasphemy, commands
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: the blasphemy, that is, by his word, which is his act,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: that is the motion of his action, by this evil
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: and blaspheming instrument Section eighty seven. It is thus God
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: hardens Pharaoh. He presents to his impious and evil will
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: his word and his work, which that will hates, that is,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: by its engendered and natural corruption. And thus while God
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: does not change by his spirit that will within, but
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: goes on presenting and enforcing. And while Pharaoh, considering his
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: own resources, his riches, and his power, trusts to them
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: from the same naturally evil inclination. It comes to pass that,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: being inflated and uplifted by the imagination of his own
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: greatness on the one hand, and swollen into proud contempt
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: of Moses, coming in all humility with that unostentatious word
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: of God on the other, he becomes hardened. And then
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: the more and more irritated and chafed, the more Moses
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: advances and threatenshereas this his evil will would not of
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: itself have been moved or hardened at all, but as
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: the omnipotent agent moved it by that his inevitable motion,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: it must of necessity will one way or the other.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: And thus as soon as he presented to it outwardly
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: that which naturally irritated and offended it, then it was
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: that Pharaoh could not avoid becoming hardened, even as he
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: could not avoid the action of the divine omnipotence and
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: the aversion or enmity of his own will. Wherefore the
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: hardening of Pharaoh's heart by God is wrought. Thus God
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: presents outwardly to his enmity that which he naturally hates,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: and then he ceases not to move within by his
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: omnipotent motion the evil will which he there finds. He
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: from the enmity of his will, cannot but hate that
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: which is contrary to him, and trusts to his own powers,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: and that so obstinately that he can neither hear nor feel,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: but is carried away in the possession of Satan, like
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: a madman or a fury. If I have brought these
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: things home with convincing persuasion, the victory in this point
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: is mine. And having exploded the tropes and glosses of Men,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: I understand the words of God simply so that there
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: is no necessity for clearing God or accusing him of iniquity.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: For when he saith, I will harden the heart of Pharaoh,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: he speaks simply as though he should say, I will
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: so work that the heart of Pharaoh shall be hardened,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: or by my operation and working, the heart of Pharaoh
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: shall be hardened. And how this was to be done
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: we have heard that is by my general motion, I
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: will so move his very evil will, that he shall
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: go on in his course and lust of willing. Nor
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: will I cease to move it, nor can I do otherwise.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: I will nevertheless present to him my word and work
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: against which that evil impetus will run, for he, being evil,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: cannot but will evil while I move him by the
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: power of mine owns ipetence. Thus God, with the greatest
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: certainty knew, and with the greatest certainty, declared that Pharaoh
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: would be hardened, because He, with the greatest certainty knew
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: that the will of Pharaoh could neither resist the motion
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: of his omnipotence, nor put away its own enmity, nor
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: receive its adversary Moses. And that as that evil will
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: still remain, he must of necessity become worse more hardened
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: and more proud, while by his course and impetus, trusting
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: to his own powers, he ran against that which he
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: would not receive and which he despised. Here therefore you
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: see it is confirmed even by this very scripture, that
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: free will can do nothing but evil. While God, who
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: is not deceived from ignorance nor lies from iniquity, so
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: surely promises the hardening of Pharaoh, because he was certain
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: that an evil will could will nothing but evil, and
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: that as the good which it hated was presented to it,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: it could not but wax worse and worse Section eighty eight.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: It now then remains that perhaps some one may ask,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: why then does not God cease from that motion of
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: his omnipotence by which the will of the wicked is
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: moved to go on in evil and to become worse.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: I answer this is to wish that God, for the
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: sake of the wicked, would cease to be God. For
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: this you really desire, when you desire his power and
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: action to cease, that is, that He should cease to
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: be good, lest the wicked should become worse. Again, it
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: may be asked, why does he not then change in
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: his motion those evil wills? Which he moves. This belongs
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: to those secrets of majesty, where his judgments are past
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: finding out. Nor is it ours to search into, but
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: to adore these mysteries. If flesh and blood here take
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: offence and murmur, let it murmur, But it will be
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: just where it was before. God is not on that
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: account changed. And if numbers of the wicked be offended
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: and go away, yet the elect shall remain the same.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Answer will be given to those who ask, why did
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: He permit Adam to fall? And why did he make
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: all of us to be infected with the same sin,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: when he might have kept him, and might have created
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: us from some other seed, or might first have cleansed
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: that before he created us from it. God is that
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: being for whose will, no cause or reason is to
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: be assigned as a rule or standard by which it acts,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: seeing that nothing is superior or equal to it. But
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: it is itself the rule of all things. For if
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: it acted by any rule or standard, or from any
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: cause or reason, it would no longer be the will
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: of God. Wherefore what God wills is not therefore right,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: because he ought or ever was bound so to will.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: But on the contrary, what takes place is therefore right,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: because he so wills. A cause and reason are assignind
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: for the will of the creature, but not for the
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: will of the Creator, unless you set up over him
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: another creator Section eighty nine. By these arguments, I presume
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: the trope inventing diatribe, together with its trope, are sufficiently confuted.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: Let us, however, come to the text itself for the
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: purpose of seeing what agreement there is between the text
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: and the trope. For it is the way with all
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: those who elude arguments by means of tropes, to hold
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: the text itself in sovereign contempt, and to aim only
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: at picking out a certain term, twisting and crucifying it
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: upon the cross of their own opinion, without paying any
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: regard whatever, either to the circumstance, to the consequence, to
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: the precedence, or to the intention or object of the author.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Thus the diatribe in this passage, utterly disregarding the intention
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: of Moses and the scope of his words, hers out
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: of the text this term. I will harden and makes
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: of it just what it will, according to its own lust,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: not at all considering whether that can be again inserted
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: so as to agree and square with the body of
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: the text. And this is the reason why the scripture
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: was not sufficiently clear to those most received and most
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: learned men of so many ages. And no wonder, for
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: even the sun itself would not shine if it should
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: be assailed by such arts as these. But to say
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: nothing about that which I have already proved from the scriptures,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: that Pharaoh cannot rightly be said to be hardened, because
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: being borne with by the long suffering of God, he
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: was not immediately punished, seeing that he was punished by
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: so many plagues. If hardening be bearing with divine long
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: suffering and not immediately punishing, what need was there that
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: God should so many times promise that he would harden
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: the heart of Pharaoh when the signs should be wrought.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: Who now, before those signs were wrought, and before that
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: hardening was such that being inflated with his success, prosperity
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: and wealth, and being born with by the divine long
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: suffering and not punished, inflicted so many evils on the
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: children of Israel. You see therefore that this trope of
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: yours makes not at all to the purpose in this passage,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: seeing that it applies generally unto all as sinning, because
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: they are born with by the divine long suffering. And
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: thus we shall be compelled to say that all are hardened,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: seeing that there is no one who does not sin,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: and that no one sins but he who is born
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: with by the divine long suffering. Wherefore this hardening of
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Pharaoh is another hardening, independent of that general hardening as
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: produced by the long suffering of the divine goodness Section ninety.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: The more immediate design of Moses, then, is to announce
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: not so much the hardening of Pharaoh as the veracity
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: and mercy of God, that is, that the children of
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: Israel might not distrust the promise of God wherein he
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: promised that he would deliver them Exodus six one. And
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: since this was a matter of the greatest moment, he
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: foretells them the difficulty that they might not fall away
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: from their faith, knowing that all those things which were
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: foretold must be accomplished in the order in which he
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: who had made the promise had arranged them, as if
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: he had said, I will deliver you. Indeed, but you
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: will with difficulty believe it, because Pharaoh will so resist
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: and put off the deliverance. Nevertheless, believe ye, for the
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: whole of this putting off shall, by my way of
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: operation only be the means of my working the more
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: and greater miracles to your confirmation in faith, and to
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: the display of my power, that henceforth ye might the
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: more steadily believe me upon all other occasions. In the
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: same way does Christ also act, when at the Last
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Supper he promises his disciples a kingdom. He foretells them
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: numberless difficulties, such as his own death and their many tribulations,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: to the intent that when it should come to pass,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: they might afterwards the more steadily believe. And Moses, by
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: no means obscurely sets forth this meaning where he saith,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: but Pharaoh shall not send you away, that many wonders
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: might be wrought in Egypt. And again for this purpose
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: have I raised thee up, that I might show in
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: thee my power, that MY name might be declared throughout
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: all the earth. Exodus nine sixteen, Romans nine seventeen. Here
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: you see that Pharaoh was for this purpose hardened, that
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: he might resist God and put off the redemption, in
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: order that there might be an occasion given for the
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: working of signs and for the display of the power
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: of God, that he might be declared and believed on
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: throughout all the earth. And what is this but showing
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: that all these things were said and done to confirm
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: faith and to comfort the weak, that they might afterwards
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: freely believe in God as true, faithful, powerful, and merciful,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: just as though he had spoken to them in the
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: kindest manner as to little children, and had said, be
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: not terrified at the hardness of Pharaoh, For I will
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: work that very hardness myself, and I, who deliver you,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: have it in my own hand. I will only use
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: it that I may thereby work many signs and declare
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: my majesty for the furtherance of your faith. And this
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: is the reason why Moses generally after each plague repeats,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: and the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, so that he
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: would not let the people go, as the Lord had
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: spoken Exodus seven, thirteen, twenty two, eight fifteen, thirty two,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: nine twelve, and so forth. What is the intent of
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: this as the Lord had spoken, but that the Lord
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: might appear true who had foretold that he should be hardened. Now,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: if there had been any vertibility or liberty of will
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: in Pharaoh which could turn either way, God could not
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: with such certainty have for told his hardening. But as
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: he promised, who could neither be deceived nor lie it
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: of certainty and of necessity, came to pass that he
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: was hardened, which could not have taken place had not
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: the hardening been totally apart from the power of man
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: and in the power of God alone, in the same
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: manner as I said before, namely, from God being certain
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: that he should not omit the general operation of his
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: omnipotence in Pharaoh, or on Pharaoh's account, nay, that he
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: could not omit it. Moreover, God was equally certain that
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: the will of Pharaoh, being naturally evil and averse, could
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: not consent to the word and work of God which
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: was contrary to it, And that therefore, while the impetus
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: of willing was preserved in Pharaoh by the omnipotence of God,
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: and while the hated word and work was continually set
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: before his eyes, without nothing else could take place in
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: Pharaoh but offense and the hardening of his heart. For
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: if God had then omitted the action of his omnis
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: potence in Pharaoh, when he set before him the word
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: of Moses, which he hated, and the will of Pharaoh
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: might be supposed to have acted alone by its own power,
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: then perhaps there might have been room for a discussion
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: which way it had power to turn. But now since
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: it was led on and carried away by its own willing,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: no violence was done to its will, because it was
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: not forced against its will, but was carried along by
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: the natural operation of God to will naturally, just as
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: it was by nature that is evil. And therefore it
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: could not but run against the word and thus become hardened.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: Hence we see that this passage makes most forcibly against
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: free will. And in this way, God who promised, could
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: not lie. And if he could not lie, then Pharaoh
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: could not but be hardened. End a section ninety