Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4.
by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Part 1 out of 7
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THE LITERARY REMAINS
OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
COLLECTED AND EDITED BY
HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE, ESQ. M.A.
VOLUME THE FOURTH
ALBI DISCIP ANGLVS
LONDON
WILLIAM PICKERING
1839
CONTENTS
ADVERTISEMENT
Notes on Luther
Notes on St Theresa
Notes on Bedell
Notes on Baxter
Notes on Leighton
Notes on Sherlock
Notes on Waterland
Notes on Skelton
Notes on Andrew Fuller
Notes on Whitaker
Notes on Oxlee
Notes on A Barrister's Hints
Notes on Davison
Notes on Irving
Notes on Noble
Essay on Faith
* * * * *
ADVERTISEMENT.
For some remarks on the character of this publication, the Editor begs
to refer the Reader to the Preface to the third volume of these Remains.
That volume and the present are expressly connected together as one
work.
The various materials arranged in the following pages were preserved,
and kindly placed in the Editor's hands, by Mr. Southey, Mr. Green, Mr.
Gillman, Mr. Alfred Elwyn of Philadelphia, United States, Mr. Money, Mr.
Hartley Coleridge, and the Rev. Edward Coleridge; and to those gentlemen
the Editor's best acknowledgments are due.
Lincoln's Inn,
9th May, 1839.
* * * * *
LITERARY REMAINS.
* * * * *
NOTES ON LUTHER'S TABLE TALK [1]
I cannot meditate too often, too deeply, or too devotionally on the
personeity of God, and his personality in the Word, [Greek: Gio to
monogenei], and thence on the individuity of the responsible
creature;--that it is a perfection which, not indeed in my intellect,
but yet in my habit of feeling, I have too much confounded with that
'complexus' of visual images, cycles or customs of sensations, and
fellow-travelling circumstances (as the ship to the mariner), which make
up our empirical self: thence to bring myself to apprehend livelily the
exceeding mercifulness and love of the act of the Son of God, in
descending to seek after the prodigal children, and to house with them
in the sty. Likewise by the relation of my own understanding to the
light of reason, and (the most important of all the truths that have
been vouchsafed to me!) to the will which is the reason,--will in the
form of reason--I can form a sufficient gleam of the possibility of the
subsistence of the human soul in Jesus to the Eternal Word, and how it
might perfect itself so as to merit glorification and abiding union with
the Divinity; and how this gave a humanity to our Lord's righteousness
no less than to his sufferings. Doubtless, as God, as the absolute
Alterity of the Absolute, he could not suffer; but that he could not lay
aside the absolute, and by union with the creaturely become affectible,
and a second, but spiritual Adam, and so as afterwards to be partaker of
the absolute in the Absolute, even as the Absolute had partaken of
passion ([Greek: tou paschein]) and infirmity in it, that is, the finite
and fallen creature;--this can be asserted only by one who
(unconsciously perhaps), has accustomed himself to think of God as a
thing,--having a necessity of constitution, that wills, or rather tends
and inclines to this or that, because it is this or that, not as being
that, which is that which it wills to be. Such a necessity is truly
compulsion; nor is it in the least altered in its nature by being
assumed to be eternal, in virtue of an endless remotion or retrusion of
the constituent cause, which being manifested by the understanding
becomes a foreseen despair of a cause.
Sunday 11th February, 1826.
One argument strikes me in favour of the tenet of Apostolic succession,
in the ordination of Bishops and Presbyters, as taught by the Church of
Rome, and by the larger part of the earlier divines of the Church of
England, which I have not seen in any of the books on this subject;
namely, that in strict analogy with other parts of Christian history,
the miracle itself contained a check upon the inconvenient consequences
necessarily attached to all miracles, as miracles, narrowing the
possible claims to any rights not proveable at the bar of universal
reason and experience. Every man among the Sectaries, however ignorant,
may justify himself in scattering stones and fire squibs by an alleged
unction of the Spirit. The miracle becomes perpetual, still beginning,
never ending. Now on the Church doctrine, the original miracle provides
for the future recurrence to the ordinary and calculable laws of the
human understanding and moral sense; instead of leaving every man a
judge of his own gifts, and of his right to act publicly on that
judgment. The initiative alone is supernatural; but all beginning is
necessarily miraculous, that is, hath either no antecedent, or one
[Greek: heterou genous], which therefore is not its, but merely an,
antecedent,--or an incausative alien co-incident in time; as if, for
instance, Jack's shout were followed by a flash of lightning, which
should strike and precipitate the ball on St. Paul's cathedral. This
would be a miracle as long as no causative 'nexus' was conceivable
between the antecedent, the noise of the shout, and the consequent, the
atmospheric discharge.
The Epistle Dedicatory.
But this will be your glory and inexpugnable, if you cleave in truth
and practice to God's holy service, worship and religion: that
religion and faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is pure and
undefiled before God even the Father, which is to visit the fatherless
and widows in their affliction, and to keep yourselves unspotted from
the world.
James i. 27.
Few mistranslations (unless indeed the word used by the translator of
St. James meant differently from its present meaning), have led astray
more than this rendering of [Greek: Thraeskeia.] (outward or ceremonial
worship, 'cultus', divine service,) by the English 'religion'. St. James
sublimely says: What the 'ceremonies' of the law were to morality,
'that' morality itself is to the faith in Christ, that is, its outward
symbol, not the substance itself.
Chap. I. p. 1, 2.
That the Bible is the word of God (said Luther) the same I prove as
followeth: All things that have been and now are in the world; also
how it now goeth and standeth in the world, the same was written
altogether particularly at the beginning, in the first book of Moses
concerning the creation. And even as God made and created it, even so
it was, even so it is, and even so doth it stand to this present day.
And although King Alexander the Great, the kingdom of Egypt, the
Empire of Babel, the Persian, Grecian and Roman monarchs; the Emperors
Julius and Augustus most fiercely did rage and swell against this
Book, utterly to suppress and destroy the same; yet notwithstanding
they could prevail nothing, they are all gone and vanished; but this
Book from time to time hath remained, and will remain unremoved in
full and ample manner as it was written at the first.
A proof worthy of the manly mind of Luther, and compared with which the
Grotian pretended demonstrations, from Grotius himself to Paley, are
mischievous underminings of the Faith, pleadings fitter for an Old
Bailey thieves' counsellor than for a Christian divine. The true
evidence of the Bible is the Bible,--of Christianity the living fact of
Christianity itself, as the manifest 'archeus' or predominant of the
life of the planet.
Ib. p. 4.
The art of the School divines (said Luther) with their speculations in
the Holy Scriptures, are merely vain and human cogitations, spun out
of their own natural wit and understanding. They talk much of the
union of the will and understanding, but all is mere fantasy and
fondness. The right and true speculation (said Luther) is this,
Believe in Christ; do what thou oughtest to do in thy vocation, &c.
This is the only practice in divinity. Also, 'Mystica Theologia
Dionysii' is a mere fable, and a lie, like to Plato's fables. 'Omnia
sunt non ens, et omnia sunt ens'; all is something, and all is
nothing, and so he leaveth all hanging in frivolous and idle sort.
Still, however, 'du theure Mann Gottes, mein verehrter Luther'! reason,
will, understanding are words, to which real entities correspond; and we
may in a sound and good sense say that reason is the ray, the projected
disk or image, from the Sun of Righteousness, an echo from the Eternal
Word--'the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world';
and that when the will placeth itself in a right line with the reason,
there ariseth the spirit, through which the will of God floweth into and
actuates the will of man, so that it willeth the things of God, and the
understanding is enlivened, and thenceforward useth the materials
supplied to it by the senses symbolically; that is, with an insight into
the true substance thereof.
Ib. p. 9.
The Pope usurpeth and taketh to himself the power to expound and to
construe the Scriptures according to his pleasure. What he saith, must
stand and be spoken as from heaven. Therefore let us love and
preciously value the divine word, that thereby we may be able to
resist the Devil and his swarm.
As often as I use in prayer the 16th verse of the 71st Psalm, (in our
Prayer-book version), my thoughts especially revert to the subject of
the right appreciation of the Scriptures, and in what sense the Bible
may be called the word of God, and how and under what conditions the
unity of the Spirit is translucent through the letter, which, read as
the letter merely, is the word of this and that pious but fallible and
imperfect man. Alas for the superstition, where the words themselves are
made to be the Spirit! O might I live but to utter all my meditations on
this most concerning point!
Ib. p. 12.
Bullinger said once in my hearing (said Luther) that he was earnest
against the Anabaptists, as contemners of God's word, and also against
those which attributed too much to the literal word, for (said he)
such do sin against God and his almighty power; as the Jews did in
naming the ark, God. But, (said he) whoso holdeth a mean between both,
the same is taught what is the right use of the word and sacraments.
Whereupon (said Luther) I answered him and said; Bullinger, you err,
you know neither yourself, nor what you hold; I mark well your tricks
and fallacies: Zuinglius and OEcolampadius likewise proceeded too far
in the ungodly meaning: but when Brentius withstood them, they then
lessened their opinions, alleging, they did not reject the literal
word, but only condemned certain gross abuses. By this your error you
cut in sunder and separate the word and the spirit, &c.
In my present state of mind, and with what light I now enjoy,--(may God
increase it, and cleanse it from the dark mist into the 'lumen siccum'
of sincere knowledge!)--I cannot persuade myself that this vehemence of
our dear man of God against Bullinger, Zuinglius and OEcolampadius on
this point could have had other origin, than his misconception of what
they intended. But Luther spoke often (I like him and love him all the
better therefor,) in his moods and according to the mood. Was not that a
different mood, in which he called St. James's Epistle a 'Jack-Straw
poppet'; and even in this work selects one verse as the best in the
whole letter,--evidently meaning, the only verse of any great value?
Besides he accustomed himself to use the term, 'the word,' in a very
wide sense when the narrower would have cramped him. When he was on the
point of rejecting the Apocalypse, then 'the word' meant the spirit of
the Scriptures collectively.
Ib. p. 21.
I, (said Luther), do not hold that children are without faith when
they are baptized; for inasmuch as they are brought to Christ by his
command, and that the Church prayeth for them; therefore, without all
doubt, faith is given unto them, although with our natural sense and
reason we neither see nor understand it.
Nay, but dear honoured Luther! is this fair? If Christ or Scripture had
said in one place, 'Believe, and thou mayest be baptized'; and in
another place, 'Baptize infants'; then we might perhaps be allowed to
reconcile the two seemingly jarring texts, by such words as "faith is
given to them, although, &c." But when no such text, as the latter, is
to be found, nor any one instance as a substitute, then your conclusion
seems arbitrary.
Ib. p. 25.
This argument (said Luther), concludeth so much as nothing; for,
although they had been angels from heaven, yet that troubleth me
nothing at all; we are now dealing about God's word, and with the
truth of the Gospel, that is a matter of far greater weight to have
the same kept and preserved pure and clear; therefore we (said
Luther), neither care nor trouble ourselves for, and about, the
greatness of Saint Peter and the other Apostles, or how many and great
miracles they wrought: the thing which we strive for is, that the
truth of the Holy Gospel may stand; for God regardeth not men's
reputations nor persons.
Oh, that the dear man Luther had but told us here what he meant by the
term, Gospel! That St. Paul had seen even St. Luke's, is but a
conjecture, grounded on a conjectural interpretation of a single text,
doubly equivocal; namely, that the Luke mentioned was the same with the
Evangelist Luke; and that the 'evangelium' signified a book; the latter,
of itself improbable, derives its probability from the undoubtedly very
strong probability of the former. If then not any book, much less the
four books, now called the four Gospels, were meant by Paul, but the
contents of those books, as far as they are veracious, and whatever else
was known on equal authority at that time, though not contained in those
books; if, in short, the whole sum of Christ's acts and discourses be
what Paul meant by the Gospel; then the argument is circuitous, and
returns to the first point,--What 'is' the Gospel? Shall we believe you,
and not rather the companions of Christ, the eye and ear witnesses of
his doings and sayings? Now I should require strong inducements to make
me believe that St. Paul had been guilty of such palpably false logic;
and I therefore feel myself compelled to infer, that by the Gospel Paul
intended the eternal truths known ideally from the beginning, and
historically realized in the manifestation of the Word in Christ Jesus;
and that he used the ideal immutable truth as the canon and criterion of
the oral traditions. For example, a Greek mathematician, standing in the
same relation of time and country to Euclid as that in which St. Paul
stood to Jesus Christ, might have exclaimed in the same spirit: "What do
you talk to me of this, that, and the other intimate acquaintance of
Euclid's? My object is to convey the sublime system of geometry which he
realized, and by that must I decide." "I," says St. Paul, "have been
taught by the spirit of Christ, a teaching susceptible of no addition,
and for which no personal anecdotes, however reverendly attested, can be
a substitute." But dearest Luther was a translator; he could not, must
not, see this.
Ib. p. 32.
That God's word, and the Christian Church, is preserved against the
raging of the world.
The Papists have lost the cause; with God's word they are not able to
resist or withstand us. * * * 'The kings of the earth stand up, and
the rulers take counsel together, &c'. God will deal well enough with
these angry gentlemen, and will give them but small thanks for their
labor, in going about to suppress his word and servants; he hath sat
in counsel above these five thousand five hundred years, hath ruled
and made laws. Good Sirs! be not so choleric; go further from the
wall, lest you knock your pates against it. 'Kiss the Son lest he be
angry, &c'. That is, take hold on Christ, or the Devil will take hold
on you, &c.
The second Psalm (said Luther), is a proud Psalm against those
fellows. It begins mild and simply, but it endeth stately and
rattling. * * * I have now angered the Pope about his images of
idolatry. O! how the sow raiseth her bristles! * * The Lord saith:
'Ego suscitabo vos in novissimo die': and then he will call and say:
ho! Martin Luther, Philip Melancthon, Justus Jonas, John Calvin, &c.
Arise, come up, * * * Well on, (said Luther), let us be of good
comfort.
A delicious paragraph. How our fine preachers would turn up their
Tom-tit beaks and flirt with their tails at it! But this is the way in
which the man of life, the man of power, sets the dry bones in motion.
Chap. II. p. 37.
This is the thanks that God hath for his grace, for creating, for
redeeming, sanctifying, nourishing, and for preserving us: such a
seed, fruit, and godly child is the world. O, woe be to it!
Too true.
Ib. p. 54.
That out of the best comes the worst.
Out of the Patriarchs and holy Fathers came the Jews that crucified
Christ; out of the Apostles came Judas the traitor; out of the city
Alexandria (where a fair illustrious and famous school was, and from
whence proceeded many upright and godly learned men), came Arius and
Origenes.
Poor Origen! Surely Luther was put to it for an instance, and had never
read the works of that very best of the old Fathers, and eminently
upright and godly learned man.
Ib.
The sparrows are the least birds, and yet they are very hurtful, and
have the best nourishment.
'Ergo digni sunt omni persecutione'. Poor little Philip Sparrows! Luther
did not know that they more than earn their good wages by destroying
grubs and other small vermin.
Ib. p. 61.
He that without danger will know God, and will speculate of him, let
him look first into the manger, that is, let him begin below, and let
him first learn to know the Son of the Virgin Mary, born at Bethlehem,
that lies and sucks in his mother's bosom; or let one look upon him
hanging on the Cross. ** But take good heed in any case of high
climbing cogitations, to clamber up to heaven without this ladder,
namely, the Lord Christ in his humanity.
To know God as God ([Greek: ton Zaena], the living God) we must assume
his personality: otherwise what were it but an ether, a gravitation?
--but to assume his personality, we must begin with his humanity, and
this is impossible but in history; for man is an historical--not an
eternal being. 'Ergo'. Christianity is of necessity historical and not
philosophical only.
Ib. p. 62.
'What is that to thee'? said Christ to Peter. 'Follow thou me'--me,
follow me, and not thy questions, or cogitations.
Lord! keep us looking to, and humbly following, thee!
Chap. VI. p. 103.
The philosophers and learned heathen (said Luther) have described God,
that he is as a circle, the point whereof in the midst is every where;
but the circumference, which on the outside goeth round about, is no
where: herewith they would shew that God is all, and yet is nothing.
What a huge difference the absence of a blank space, which is nothing,
or next to nothing, may make! The words here should have been printed,
"God is all, and yet is no thing;" For what does 'thing' mean? Itself,
that is, the 'ing', or inclosure, that which is contained within an
outline, or circumscribed. So likewise to 'think' is to inclose, to
determine, confine and define. To think an infinite is a contradiction
in terms equal to a boundless bound. So in German 'Ding, denken'; in
Latin 'res, reor'.
Chap. VII. p. 113.
Helvidius alleged the mother of Christ was not a virgin; so that
according to his wicked allegation, Christ was born in original sin.
O, what a tangle of impure whimsies has this notion of an immaculate
conception, an Ebionite tradition, as I think, brought into the
Christian Church! I have sometimes suspected that the Apostle John had a
particular view to this point, in the first half of the first chapter of
his Gospel. Not that I suppose our present Matthew then in existence, or
that, if John had seen the Gospel according to Luke, the 'Christopaedia'
had been already prefixed to it. But the rumor might have been whispered
about, and as the purport was to give a psilanthropic explanation and
solution of the phrases, Son of God and Son of Man,--so Saint John met
it by the true solution, namely, the eternal Filiation of the Word.
Ib. p. 120. Of Christ's riding into Jerusalem.
But I hold (said Luther) that Christ himself did not mention that
prophecy of Zechariah, but rather, that the Apostles and Evangelists
did use it for a witness.
Worth remembering for the purpose of applying it to the text in which
our Lord is represented in the first (or Matthew's) Gospel, and by that
alone, as citing Daniel by name. It was this text that so sorely, but I
think very unnecessarily, perplexed and gravelled Bentley, who was too
profound a scholar and too acute a critic to admit the genuineness of
the whole of that book.
Ib.
The Prophets (said Luther) did set, speak, and preach of the second
coming of Christ in manner as we now do.
I regret that Mr. Irving should have blended such extravagancies and
presumptuous prophesyings with his support and vindication of the
Millennium, and the return of Jesus in his corporeal individuality,
--because these have furnished divines in general, both Churchmen and
Dissenting, with a pretext for treating his doctrine with silent
contempt. Had he followed the example of his own Ben Ezra, and argued
temperately and learnedly, the controversy must have forced the
momentous question on our Clergy:--Are Christians bound to believe
whatever an Apostle believed,--and in the same way and sense? I think
Saint Paul himself lived to doubt the solidity of his own literal
interpretation of our Lord's words.
The whole passage in which our Lord describes his coming is so
evidently, and so intentionally expressed in the diction and images of
the Prophets, that nothing but the carnal literality common to the Jews
at that time and most strongly marked in the disciples, who were among
the least educated of their countrymen, could have prevented the
symbolic import and character of the words from being seen. The whole
Gospel and the Epistles of John, are a virtual confutation of this
reigning error--and no less is the Apocalypse whether written by, or
under the authority of, the Evangelist.
The unhappy effect which St. Paul's (may I not say) incautious language
respecting Christ's return produced on the Thessalonians, led him to
reflect on the subject, and he instantly in the second epistle to them
qualified the doctrine, and never afterwards resumed it; but on the
contrary, in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, c. 15, substitutes
the doctrine of immortality in a celestial state and a spiritual body.
On the nature of our Lord's future epiphany or phenomenal person, I am
not ashamed to acknowledge, that my views approach very nearly to those
of Emanuel Swedenborg.
Ib. p. 121.
Doctor Jacob Schenck never preacheth out of his book, but I do, (said
Luther), though not of necessity, but I do it for example's sake to
others.
As many notes, 'memoranda', cues of connection and transition as the
preacher may find expedient or serviceable to him; well and good. But to
read in a manuscript book, as our Clergy now do, is not to preach at
all. Preach out of a book, if you must; but do not read in it, or even
from it. A read sermon of twenty minutes will seem longer to the hearers
than a free discourse of an hour.
Ib.
My simple opinion is (said Luther) and I do believe that Christ for us
descended into hell, to the end he might break and destroy the same,
as in Psalm xvi, and Acts ii, is shewed and proved.
Could Luther have been ignorant, that this clause was not inserted into
the Apostle's Creed till the sixth century after Christ? I believe the
original intention of the clause was no more than 'vere mortuus est'--in
contradiction to the hypothesis of a trance or state of suspended
animation.
Chap. VII. p. 122.
When Christ (said Luther) forbiddeth to spread abroad or to make known
his works of wonder; there he speaketh as being sent from the Father,
and doth well and right therein in forbidding them, to the end that
thereby he might leave us an example, not to seek our own praise and
honor in that wherein we do good; but we ought to seek only and alone
the honor of God.
Not satisfactory. Doubtless, the command was in connection with the
silence enjoined respecting his Messiahship.
Chap. VIII. p. 147.
Doctor Hennage said to Luther, Sir, where you say that the Holy Spirit
is the certainty in the word towards God, that is, that a man is
certain of his own mind and opinion; then it must needs follow that
all sects have the Holy Ghost, for they will needs be most certain of
their doctrine and religion.
Luther might have answered, "positive, you mean, not certain."
Chap. IX. p. 160.
But who hath power to forgive or to detain sins? Answer; the Apostles
and all Church servants, and (in case of necessity) every Christian.
Christ giveth them not power over money, wealth, kingdoms, &c; but
over sins and the consciences of human creatures, over the power of
the Devil, and the throat of Hell.
Few passages in the Sacred Writings have occasioned so much mischief,
abject slavishness, bloated pride, tyrannous usurpation, bloody
persecution, with kings even against their will the drudges, false
soul-destroying quiet of conscience, as this text, 'John' xx. 23.
misinterpreted. It is really a tremendous proof of what the
misunderstanding of a few words can do. That even Luther partook of the
delusion, this paragraph gives proof. But that a delusion it is; that
the commission given to the Seventy whom Christ sent out to proclaim and
offer the kingdom of God, and afterwards to the Apostles, refers either
to the power of making rules and ordinances in the Church, or otherwise
to the gifts of miraculous healing, which our Lord at that time
conferred on them; and that 'per figuram causce pro effecto', 'sins'
here mean diseases, seems to me more than probable. At all events, the
text surely does not mean that the salvation of a repentant and
believing Christian depends upon the will of a priest in absolution.
Ib. p. 161.
And again, they are able to absolve and make a human creature free and
loose from all his sins, if in case he repenteth and believeth in
Christ; and on the contrary, they are able to detain all his sina, if
he doth not repent and believeth not in Christ.
In like manner if he sincerely repent and believe, his sins are
forgiven, whether the minister absolve him or not. Now if M + 5 =5, and
5-M = 5, M = O. If he be impenitent and unbelieving, his sins are
detained, no doubt, whether the minister do or do not detain them.
Ib. p. 163.
Adam was created of God in such sort righteous, as that he became of a
righteous an unrighteous person; as Paul himself argueth, and withall
instructeth himself, where he saith, The law is not given for a
righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient.
This follows from the very definition or idea of righteousness;-it is
itself the law;--[Greek: pas gar dikais autonomos.]
Ib.
The Scripture saith, God maketh the ungodly righteous; there he
calleth us all, one with another, despairing and wicked wretches; for
what will an ungodly creature not dare to accomplish, if he may but
have occasion, place, and opportunity?
That is with a lust within correspondent to the temptation from without.
A Christian's conscience, methinks, ought to be a 'Janus bifrons',--a
Gospel-face retrospective, and smiling through penitent tears on the
sins of the past, and a Moses-face looking forward in frown and menace,
frightening the harlot will into a holy abortion of sins conceived but
not yet born, perchance not yet quickened. The fanatic Antinomian
reverses this; for the past he requires all the horrors of remorse and
despair, till the moment of assurance; thenceforward, he may do what he
likes, for he cannot sin.
Ib. p. 165.
All natural inclinations (said Luther) are either against or without
God; therefore none are good. We see that no man is so honest as to
marry a wife, only thereby to have children, to love and to bring them
up in the fear of God.
This is a very weak instance. If a man had been commanded to marry by
God, being so formed as that no sensual delight accompanied, and refused
to do so, unless this appetite and gratification were added,--then
indeed!
Chap. X. p. 168, 9.
Ah Lord God (said Luther), why should we any way boast of our
free-will, as if it were able to do anything in divine and spiritual
matters were they never so small? * * * I confess that mankind hath a
free-will, but it is to milk kine, to build houses, &c., and no
further: for so long as a man sitteth well and in safety, and sticketh
in no want, so long he thinketh he hath a free-will which is able to
do something; but, when want and need appeareth, that there is neither
to eat nor to drink, neither money nor provision, where is then the
free will? It is utterly lost, and cannot stand when it cometh to the
pinch. But faith only standeth fast and sure, and seeketh Christ.
Luther confounds free-will with efficient power, which neither does nor
can exist save where the finite will is one with the absolute Will. That
Luther was practically on the right side in this famous controversy, and
that he was driving at the truth, I see abundant reason to believe. But
it is no less evident that he saw it in a mist, or rather as a mist with
dissolving outline; and as he saw the thing as a mist, so he ever and
anon mistakes a mist for the thing. But Erasmus and Saavedra were
equally indistinct; and shallow and unsubstantial to boot. In fact, till
the appearance of Kant's 'Kritiques' of the pure and of the practical
Reason the problem had never been accurately or adequately stated, much
less solved.
26 June, 1826.
Ib. p. 174.
Loving friends, (said Luther) our doctrine that free-will is dead and
nothing at all is grounded powerfully in Holy Scripture.
It is of vital importance for a theological student to understand
clearly the utter diversity of the Lutheran, which is likewise the
Calvinistic, denial of free-will in the unregenerate, and the doctrine
of the modern Necessitarians and ('proh pudor!') of the later
Calvinists, which denies the proper existence of will altogether. The
former is sound, Scriptural, compatible with the divine justice, a new,
yea, a mighty motive to morality, and, finally, the dictate of common
sense grounded on common experience. The latter the very contrary of all
these.
Chap. xii. p. 187.
This is now (said Luther), the first instruction concerning the law;
namely, that the same must be used to hinder the ungodly from their
wicked and mischievous intentions. For the Devil, who is an Abbot and
a Prince of this world, driveth and allureth people to work all manner
of sin and wickedness; for which cause God hath ordained magistrates,
elders, schoolmasters, laws, and statutes, to the end, if they cannot
do more, yet at least that they may bind the claws of the Devil, and
to hinder him from raging and swelling so powerfully (in those which
are his) according to his will and pleasure.
And (said Luther), although thou hadst not committed this or that sin,
yet nevertheless, thou art an ungodly creature, &c. but what is done
cannot he undone, he that hath stolen, let him henceforward steal no
more.
Secondly, we use the law spiritually, which is done in this manner;
that it maketh the transgressions greater, as Saint Paul saith; that
is, that it may reveal and discover to people their sins, blindness,
misery, and ungodly doings wherein they were conceived and born;
namely, that they are ignorant of God, and are his enemies, and
therefore have justly deserved death, hell, God's judgments, his
everlasting wrath and indignation. Saint Paul, (said Luther),
expoundeth such spiritual offices and works of the law with many words.
Rom. vii.
Nothing can be more sound or more philosophic than the contents of these
two paragraphs. They afford a sufficient answer to the pretence of the
Romanists and Arminians, that by the law St. Paul meant only the
ceremonial law.
Ib. p. 189.
And if Moses had not cashiered and put himself out of his office, and
had not taken it away with these words, (where he saith, 'The Lord thy
God will raise up unto thee another prophet out of thy brethren; Him
shall thou hear'. (Deut. xviii.)) who then at any time would or could
have believed the Gospel, and forsaken Moses?
If I could be persuaded that this passage (Deut. xviii. 15-19.)
primarily referred to Christ, and that Christ, not Joshua and his
successors, was the prophet here promised; I must either become a
Unitarian psilanthrophist, and join Priestley and Belsham,--or abandon
to the Jews their own Messiah as yet to come, and cling to the religion
of John and Paul, without further reference to Moses than to Lycurgus,
Solon and Numa; all of whom in their different spheres no less prepared
the way for the coming of the Lord, 'the desire of the nations'.
Ib. p. 190.
It is therefore most evident (said Luther), that the law can but only
help us to know our sins, and to make us afraid of death. Now sins and
death are such things as belong to the world, and which are therein.
Both in Paul and Luther, (names which I can never separate),--not indeed
peculiar to these, for it is the same in the Psalms, Ezekiel, and
throughout the Scriptures, but which I feel most in Paul and Luther,
--there is one fearful blank, the wisdom or necessity of which I do not
doubt, yet cannot help groping and straining after like one that stares
in the dark; and this is Death. The law makes us afraid of death. What
is death?--an unhappy life? Who does not feel the insufficiency of this
answer? What analogy does immortal suffering bear to the only death
which is known to us?
Since I wrote the above, God has, I humbly trust, given me a clearer
light as to the true nature of the 'death' so often mentioned in the
Scriptures.
Ib.
It is (said Luther), a very hard matter: yea, an impossible thing for
thy human strength, whosoever thou art (without God's assistance) that
(at such a time when Moses setteth upon thee with his law, and
fearfully affrighteth thee, accuseth and condemneth thee, threateneth
thee with God's wrath and death) thou shouldest as then be of such a
mind; namely, as if no law nor sin had ever been at any time:--I say,
it is in a manner a thing impossible, that a human creature should
carry himself in such a sort, when he is and feeleth himself assaulted
with trials and temptations, and when the conscience hath to do with
God, as then to think no otherwise, than that from everlasting nothing
hath been, but only and alone Christ, altogether grace and deliverance.
Yea, verily, Amen and Amen! For this short heroic paragraph contains the
sum and substance, the heighth and the depth of all true philosophy.
Most assuredly right difficult it is for us, while we are yet in the
narrow chamber of death, with our faces to the dusky falsifying
looking-glass that covers the scant end-side of the blind passage from
floor to ceiling,--right difficult for us, so wedged between its walls
that we cannot turn round, nor have other escape possible but by walking
backward, to understand that all we behold or have any memory of having
ever beholden, yea, our very selves as seen by us, are but shadows, and
when the forms that we loved vanish, impossible not to feel as if they
were real.
Ib. p. 197.
Nothing that is good proceedeth out of the works of the law, except
grace be present; for what we are forced to do, the same goeth not
from the heart, neither is acceptable.
A law supposes a law-giver, and implies an actuator and executor, and
consequently rewards and punishments publicly announced, and distinctly
assigned to the deeds enjoined or forbidden; and correlatively in the
subjects of the law, there are supposed, first, assurance of the being,
the power, the veracity and seeingness of the law-giver, in whom I here
comprise the legislative, judicial and executive functions; and
secondly, self-interest, desire, hope and fear. Now from this view, it
is evident that the deeds or works of the Law are themselves null and
dead, deriving their whole significance from their attachment or
alligation to the rewards and punishments, even as this diversely shaped
and ink colored paper has its value wholly from the words or meanings,
which have been arbitrarily connected therewith; or as a ladder, or
flight of stairs, of a provision-loft, or treasury. If the architect or
master of the house had chosen to place the store-room or treasury on
the ground floor, the ladder or steps would have been useless. The life
is divided between the rewards and punishments on the one hand, and the
hope and fear on the other: namely, the active life or excitancy belongs
to the former, the passive life or excitability to the latter. Call the
former the afficients, the latter the affections, the deeds being merely
the signs or impresses of the former, as the seal, on the latter as the
wax. Equally evident is it, that the affections are wholly formed by the
deeds, which are themselves but the lifeless unsubstantial shapes of the
actual forms ('formae formantes'), namely, the rewards and punishments.
Now contrast with this the process of the Gospel. There the affections
are formed in the first instance, not by any reference to works or
deeds, but by an unmerited rescue from death, liberation from slavish
task-work; by faith, gratitude, love, and affectionate contemplation of
the exceeding goodness and loveliness of the Saviour, Redeemer,
Benefactor: from the affections flow the deeds, or rather the affections
overflow in the deeds, and the rewards are but a continuance and
continued increase of the free grace in the state of the soul and in the
growth and gradual perfecting of that state, which are themselves gifts
of the same free grace, and one with the rewards; for in the kingdom of
Christ which is the realm of love and inter-community, the joy and grace
of each regenerated spirit becomes double, and thereby augments the joys
and the graces of the others, and the joys and graces of all unite in
each;--Christ, the head, and by his Spirit the bond, or unitive 'copula'
of all, being the spiritual sun whose entire image is reflected in every
individual of the myriads of dew-drops. While under the Law, the all was
but an aggregate of subjects, each striving after a reward for himself,
--not as included in and resulting from the state,--but as the
stipulated wages of the task-work, as a loaf of bread may be the pay or
bounty promised for the hewing of wood or the breaking of stones!
Ib.
He (said Luther), that will dispute with the Devil, &c.
Queries.
I. Abstractedly from, and independently of, all sensible substances, and
the bodies, wills, faculties, and affections of men, has the Devil,
or would the Devil have, a personal self-subsistence? Does he, or
can he, exist as a conscious individual agent or person? Should the
answer to this query be in the negative: then--
II. Do there exist finite and personal beings, whether with composite
and decomponible bodies, that is, embodied, or with simple and
indecomponible bodies, (which is all that can be meant by
disembodied as applied to finite creatures), so eminently wicked, or
wicked and mischievous in so peculiar a kind, as to constitute a
distinct 'genus' of beings under the name of devils?
III. Is this second 'hypothesis' compatible with the acts and functions
attributed to the Devil in Scripture? O! to have had these three
questions put by Melancthon to Luther, and to have heard his reply!
Ib. p. 200.
If (said Luther) God should give unto us a strong and an unwavering
faith, then we should he proud, yea also, we should at last contemn
Him. Again, if he should give us the right knowledge of the law, then
we should be dismayed and fainthearted, we should not know which way
to wind ourselves.
The main reason is, because in this instance, the change in the relation
constitutes the difference of the things. A. considered as acting 'ab
extra' on the selfish fears and desires of men is the Law: the same A:
acting 'ab intra' as a new nature infused by grace, as the mind of
Christ prompting to all obedience, is the Gospel. Yet what Luther says
is likewise very true. Could we reduce the great spiritual truths or
ideas of our faith to comprehensible conceptions, or (for the thing
itself is impossible) fancy we had done so, we should inevitably be
'proud vain asses.'
Ib. p. 203.
And as to know his works and actions, is not yet rightly to know the
Gospel, (for thereby we know not as yet that he hath overcome sin
death and the Devil); even so likewise, it is not as yet to know the
Gospel, when we know such doctrine and commandments, but when the
voice soundeth, which saith, Christ is thine own with life, with
doctrine, with works, death, resurrection, and with all that he hath,
doth and may do.
Most true.
Ib. p. 205.
The ancient Fathers said: 'Distingue tempora et concordabis
Scripturas'; distinguish the times; then may we easily reconcile the
Scriptures together.
Yea! and not only so, but we shall reconcile truths, that seem to repeal
this or that passage of Scripture, with the Scriptures. For Christ is
with his Church even to the end.
Ib.
I verily believe, (said Luther) it (the abolition of the Law) vexed to
the heart the beloved St. Paul himself before his conversion.
How dearly Martin Luther loved St. Paul! How dearly would St. Paul have
loved Martin Luther! And how impossible, that either should not have
done so!
Ib.
In this case, touching the distinguishing the Law from the Gospel, we
must utterly expel all human and natural wisdom, reason, and
understanding.
All reason is above nature. Therefore by reason in Luther, or rather in
his translator, you must understand the reasoning faculty:--that is,
the logical intellect, or the intellectual understanding. For the
understanding is in all respects a medial and mediate faculty, and has
therefore two extremities or poles, the sensual, in which form it is St.
Paul's [Greek: phronaema sarkos]; and the intellectual pole, or the
hemisphere (as it were) turned towards the reason. Now the reason ('lux
idealis seu spiritualis') shines down into the understanding, which
recognizes the light, 'id est, lumen a luce spirituali quasi alienigenum
aliquid', which it can only comprehend or describe to itself by
attributes opposite to its own essential properties. Now these latter
being contingency, and (for though the immediate objects of the
understanding are 'genera et species', still they are particular 'genera
et species') particularity, it distinguishes the formal light ('lumen')
(not the substantial light, 'lux') of reason by the attributes of the
necessary and the universal; and by irradiation of this 'lumen' or
'shine' the understanding becomes a conclusive or logical faculty. As
such it is [Greek: Logos anthropinos].
Ib. 206.
When Satan saith in thy heart, God will not pardon thy sins, nor be
gracious unto thee, I pray (said Luther) how wilt thou then, as a poor
sinner, raise up and comfort thyself, especially when other signs of
God's wrath besides do beat upon thee, as sickness, poverty, &c. And
that thy heart beginneth to preach and say, Behold, here thou livest
in sickness, thou art poor and forsaken of every one, &c.
Oh! how true, how affectingly true is this! And when too Satan, the
tempter, becomes Satan the accuser, saying in thy heart:--"This sickness
is the consequence of sin, or sinful infirmity, and thou hast brought
thyself into a fearful dilemma; thou canst not hope for salvation as
long as thou continuest in any sinful practice, and yet thou canst not
abandon thy daily dose of this or that poison without suicide. For the
sin of thy soul has become the necessity of thy body, daily tormenting
thee, without yielding thee any the least pleasurable sensation, but
goading thee on by terror without hope. Under such evidence of God's
wrath how canst thou expect to be saved?" Well may the heart cry out,
"Who shall deliver me from the 'body of this death',--from this death
that lives and tyrannizes in my body?" But the Gospel answers--"There is
a redemption from the body promised; only cling to Christ. Call on him
continually with all thy heart, and all thy soul, to give thee strength,
and be strong in thy weakness; and what Christ doth not see good to
relieve thee from, suffer in hope. It may be better for thee to be kept
humble and in self-abasement. The thorn in the flesh may remain and yet
the grace of God through Christ prove sufficient for thee. Only cling to
Christ, and do thy best. In all love and well-doing gird thyself up to
improve and use aright what remains free in thee, and if thou doest
ought aright, say and thankfully believe that Christ hath done it for
thee." O what a miserable despairing wretch should I become, if I
believed the doctrines of Bishop Jeremy Taylor in his Treatise on
Repentance, or those I heard preached by Dr.----; if I gave up the
faith, that the life of Christ would precipitate the remaining dregs of
sin in the crisis of death, and that I shall rise in purer capacity of
Christ; blind to be irradiated by his light, empty to be possessed by
his fullness, naked of merit to be clothed with his righteousness!
Ib. p. 207.
The nobility, the gentry, citizens, and farmers, &c. are now become so
haughty and ungodly, that they regard no ministers nor preachers; and
(said Luther) if we were not holpen somewhat by great princes and
persons, we could not long subsist: therefore Isaiah saith well,
'And kings shall be their nurses', &c.
Corpulent nurses too often, that overlay the babe; distempered nurses,
that convey poison in their milk!
Chap. XIII. p. 208.
Philip Melancthon said to Luther, The opinion of St. Austin of
justification (as it seemeth) was more pertinent, fit and convenient
when he disputed not, than it was when he used to speak and dispute;
for thus he saith, We ought to censure and hold that we are justified
by faith, that is by our regeneration, or by being made new creatures.
Now if it be so, then we are not justified only by faith, but by all
the gifts and virtues of God given unto us. Now what is your opinion
Sir? Do you hold that a man is justified by this regeneration, as is
St. Austin's opinion?
Luther answered and said, I hold this, and am certain, that the true
meaning of the Gospel and of the Apostle is, that we are justified
before God 'gratis', for nothing, only by God's mere mercy, wherewith
and by reason whereof, he imputeth righteousness unto us in Christ.
True; but is it more than a dispute about words? Is not the regeneration
likewise 'gratis', only by God's mere mercy? We, according to the
necessity of our imperfect understandings, must divide and distinguish.
But surely justification and sanctification are one act of God, and only
different perspectives of redemption by and through and for Christ. They
are one and the same plant, justification the root, sanctification the
flower; and (may I not venture to add?) transubstantiation into Christ
the celestial fruit.
Ib. p. 210-11. Melancthon's sixth reply.
Sir! you say Paul was justified, that is, was received to everlasting
life, only for mercy's sake. Against which, I say, if the piece-meal
or partial cause, namely our obedience, followeth not; then we are not
saved, according to these words, 'Woe is me if I preach not the
Gospel'. 1. Cor. ix.
Luther's answer.
No piecing or partial cause (said Luther) approacheth thereupto: for
faith is powerful continually without ceasing; otherwise, it is no
faith. Therefore what the works are, or of what value, the same they
are through the honor and power of faith, which undeniably is the sun
or sun-beam of this shining.
This is indeed a difficult question; and one, I am disposed to think,
which can receive its solution only by the idea, or the act and fact of
justification by faith self-reflected. But, humanly considered, this
position of Luther's provokes the mind to ask, is there no receptivity
of faith, considered as a free gift of God, prerequisite in the
individual? Does faith commence by generating the receptivity of itself?
If so, there is no difference either in kind or in degree between the
receivers and the rejectors of the word, at the moment preceeding this
reception or rejection; and a stone is a subject as capable of faith as
a man. How can obedience exist, where disobedience was not possible?
Surely two or three texts from St. Paul, detached from the total
'organismus' of his reasoning, ought not to out-weigh the plain fact,
that the contrary position is implied in, or is an immediate consequent
of, our Lord's own invitations and assurances. Every where a something
is attributed to the will. [2]
Chap. XIII. p. 211.
To conclude, a faithful person is a new creature, a new tree.
Therefore all these speeches, which in the law are usual, belong not
to this case; as to say 'A faithful' person must do good works.
Neither were it rightly spoken, to say the sun shall shine: a good
tree shall bring forth good fruit, &c. For the sun 'shall' not shine,
but it doth shine by nature unbidden, it is thereunto created.
This important paragraph is obscure by the translator's ignorance of the
true import of the German 'soll', which does not answer to our 'shall;'
but rather to our 'ought', that is, 'should' do this or that,--is under
an obligation to do it.
Ib. p. 213.
And I, my loving Brentius, to the end I may better understand this
case, do use to think in this manner, namely, as if in my heart were
no quality or virtue at all, which is called faith, and love, (as the
Sophists do speak and dream thereof), but I set all on Christ, and
say, my 'formalis justitia', that is, my sure, my constant and
complete righteousness (in which is no want nor failing, but is, as
before God it ought to be) is Christ my Lord and Saviour.
Aye! this, this is indeed to the purpose. In this doctrine my soul can
find rest. I hope to be saved by faith, not by my faith, but by the
faith of Christ in me.
Ib. p. 214.
The Scripture nameth the faithful a people of God's saints. But here
one may say; the sins which daily we commit, do offend and anger God;
how then can we be holy?
'Answer'. A mother's love to her child is much stronger than are the
excrements and scurf thereof. Even so God's love towards us is far
stronger than our filthiness and uncleanness.
Yea, one may say again, we sin without ceasing, and where sin is,
there the holy Spirit is not: therefore we are not holy, because the
holy Spirit is not in us, who maketh holy.
'Answer'. (John xvi. 14.) Now where Christ is, there is the holy
Spirit. The text saith plainly, 'The holy Ghost shall glorify me, &c.'
Now Christ is in the faithful (although they have and feel sins, do
confess the same, and with sorrow of heart do complain thereover);
therefore sins do not separate Christ from those that believe.
All in this page is true, and necessary to be preached. But O! what need
is there of holy prudence to preach it aright, that is, at right times
to the right ears! Now this is when the doctrine is necessary and thence
comfortable; but where it is not necessary, but only very comfortable,
in such cases it would be a narcotic poison, killing the soul by
infusing a stupor or counterfeit peace of conscience. Where there are no
sinkings of self-abasement, no griping sense of sin and worthlessness,
but perhaps the contrary, reckless confidence and self-valuing for good
qualities supposed an overbalance for the sins,--there it is not
necessary. In short, these are not the truths, that can be preached
[Greek: eukairos akairos], _in season and out of season_. In declining
life, or at any time in the hour of sincere humiliation, these truths
may be applied in reference to past sins collectively; but a Christian
must not, a true however infirm Christian will not, cannot, administer
them to himself immediately after sinning; least of all immediately
before. We ought fervently to pray thus:--"Most holy and most merciful
God! by the grace of thy holy Spirit make these promises profitable to
me, to preserve me from despairing of thy forgiveness through Christ my
Saviour! But O! save me from presumptuously perverting them into a
pillow for a stupified conscience! Give me grace so to contrast my sin
with thy transcendant goodness and long-suffering love, as to hate it
with an unfeigned hatred for its own exceeding sinfulness."
Ib. p. 219-20.
Faith is, and consisteth in, a person's understanding, but hope
consisteth in the will. * * Faith inditeth, distinguisheth and
teacheth, and it is the knowledge and acknowledgment. * * Faith
fighteth against error and heresies, it proveth, censureth and judgeth
the spirits and doctrines. * * Faith in divinity is the wisdom and
providence, and belongeth to the doctrine. * * Faith is the
'dialectica', for it is altogether wit and wisdom.
Luther in his Postills discourseth far better and more genially of faith
than in these paragraphs. Unfortunately, the Germans have but one word
for faith and belief--'Glaube', and what Luther here says, is spoken of
belief. Of faith he speaks in the next article but one.
Ib. p. 226.
"That regeneration only maketh God's children.
"The article of our justification before God (said Luther) is, as it
useth to be with a son which is born an heir of all his father's
goods, and cometh not thereunto by deserts."
I will here record my experience. Ever when I meet with the doctrine of
regeneration and faith and free grace simply announced--"So it
is!"--then I believe; my heart leaps forth to welcome it. But as soon as
an explanation nation or reason is added, such explanations, namely, and
reasonings as I have any where met with, then my heart leaps back again,
recoils, and I exclaim, Nay! Nay! but not so.
25th of September, 1819.
Ib. p. 227.
"Doctor Carlestad (said Luther) argueth thus: True it is that faith
justifieth, but faith is a work of the first commandment; therefore it
justifieth as a work. Moreover all that the Law commandeth, the same
is a work of the Law. Now faith is commanded, therefore faith is a
work of the Law. Again, what God will have the same is commanded: God
will have faith, therefore faith is commanded."
"St. Paul (said Luther) speaketh in such sort of the law, that he
separateth it from the promise, which is far another thing than the
law. The law is terrestrial, but the promise is celestial.
"God giveth the law to the end we may thereby be roused up and made
pliant; for the commandments do go and proceed against the proud and
haughty, which contemn God's gifts; now a gift or present cannot be a
commandment."
"Therefore we must answer according to this rule, 'Verba sunt
accipienda secundum subjectam materiam.' * * St. Paul calleth that the
work of the law, which is done and acted through the knowledge of the
law by a constrained will without the holy Spirit; so that the same is
a work of the law, which the law earnestly requireth and strictly will
have done; it is not a voluntary work, but a forced work of the rod."
And wherein did Carlestad and Luther differ? Not at all, or essentially
and irreconcilably, according as the feeling of Carlestad was. If he
meant the particular deed, the latter; if the total act, the agent
included, then the former.
Chap. XIV. p. 230.
"The love towards the neighbour (said Luther) must be like a pure
chaste love between bride and bridegroom, where all faults are
connived at, covered and borne with, and only the virtues regarded."
In how many little escapes and corner-holes does the sensibility, the
fineness, (that of which refinement is but a counterfeit, at best but a
reflex,) the geniality of nature appear in this 'son of thunder!' O for
a Luther in the present age! Why, Charles! [3] with the very handcuffs
of his prejudices he would knock out the brains (nay, that is
impossible, but,) he would split the skulls of our 'Cristo-galli',
translate the word as you like:--French Christians, or coxcombs!
Ib. p. 231-2.
"Let Witzell know, (said Luther) that David's wars and battles, which
he fought, were more pleasing to God than the fastings and prayings of
the best, of the honestest, and of the holiest monks and friars; much
more than the works of our new ridiculous and superstitious friars."
A cordial, rich and juicy speech, such as shaped itself into, and lived
anew in, the Gustavus Adolphuses.
Chap. XV. p. 233-4.
"God most certainly heareth them that pray in faith, and granteth when
and how he pleaseth, and knoweth most profitable for them. We must
also know, that when our prayers tend to the sanctifying of his name,
and to the increase and honor of his kingdom (also that we pray
according to his will) then most certainly he heareth. But when we
pray contrary to these points, then we are not heard; for God doth
nothing against his Name, his kingdom, and his will."
Then (saith the understanding, [Greek: To phronaema sarkos]) what doth
prayer effect? If A--prayer = B., and A + prayer = B, prayer = O. The
attempt to answer this argument by admitting its invalidity relatively
to God, but asserting the efficacy of prayer relatively to the pray-er
or precant himself, is merely staving off the objection a single step.
For this effect on the devout soul is produced by an act of God. The
true answer is, prayer is an idea, and 'ens spirituale', out of the
cognizance of the understanding.
The spiritual mind receives the answer in the contemplation of the idea,
life as 'deitas diffusa'. We can set the life in efficient motion, but
not contrary to the form or type. The errors and false theories of great
men sometimes, perhaps most often, arise out of true ideas falsified by
degenerating into conceptions; or the mind excited to action by an
inworking idea, the understanding works in the same direction according
to its kind, and produces a counterfeit, in which the mind rests.
This I believe to be the case with the scheme of emanation in Plotinus.
God is made a first and consequently a comparative intensity, and matter
the last; the whole thence finite; and thence its conceivability. But we
must admit a gradation of intensities in reality.
Chap. XVI. p. 247.
"When governors and rulers are enemies to God's word, then our duty is
to depart, to sell and forsake all we have, to fly from one place to
another, as Christ commandeth; we must make and prepare no uproars nor
tumults by reason of the Gospel, but we must suffer all things."
Right. But then it must be the lawful rulers; those in whom the
sovereign or supreme power is lodged by the known laws and constitution
of the country. Where the laws and constitutional liberties of the
nation are trampled on, the subjects do not lose, and are not in
conscience bound to forego, their right of resistance, because they are
Christians, or because it happens to be a matter of religion, in which
their rights are violated. And this was Luther's opinion. Whether, if a
Popish Czar shall act as our James II. acted, the Russian Greekists
would be justified in doing with him what the English Protestants
justifiably did with regard to James, is a knot which I shall not
attempt to cut; though I guess the Russians would, by cutting their
Czar's throat.
Ib.
'But no man will do this, except he be so sure of his doctrine and
religion, as that, although I myself should play the fool, and should
recant and deny this my doctrine and religion (which God forbid), he
notwithstanding therefore would not yield, but say, "If Luther, or an
angel from heaven, should teach otherwise, _Let him be accursed_."'
Well and nobly said, thou rare black swan! This, this is the Church.
Where this is found, there is the Church of Christ, though but twenty in
the whole of the congregation; and were twenty such in two hundred
different places, the Church would be entire in each. Without this no
Church.
Ib. p. 248.
"And he sent for one of his chiefest privy councillors, named Lord
John _Von Minkwitz_, and said unto him; 'You have heard my father say,
(running with him at tilt) that to sit upright on horseback maketh a
good tilter. If therefore it be good and laudable in temporal tilting
to sit upright; how much more is it now praiseworthy in God's cause to
sit, to stand, and to go uprightly and just!'"
Princely. So Shakspeare would have made a Prince Elector talk. The
metaphor is so grandly in character.
Chap. XVII. p. 249.
"_Signa sunt subinde facta, minora; res autem et facta subinde
creverunt_."
A valuable remark. As the substance waxed, that is, became more evident,
the ceremonial sign waned, till at length in the Eucharist the 'signum'
united itself with the 'significatum', and became consubstantial. The
ceremonial sign, namely, the eating the bread and drinking the wine,
became a symbol, that is, a solemn instance and exemplification of the
class of mysterious acts, which we are, or as Christians should be,
performing daily and hourly in every social duty and recreation. This is
indeed to re-create the man in and by Christ. Sublimely did the Fathers
call the Eucharist the extension of the Incarnation: only I should have
preferred the perpetuation and application of the Incarnation.
Ib.
A bare writing without a seal is of no force.
Metaphors are sorry logic, especially metaphors from human and those too
conventional usages to the ordinances of eternal wisdom.
Ib. p. 250.
Luther said, "No. A Christian is wholly and altogether sanctified. * *
We must take sure hold on Baptism by faith, as then we shall be, yea,
already are, sanctified. In this sort David nameth himself holy."
A deep thought. Strong meat for men. It must not be offered for milk.
Chap. XXI. p. 276.
Then I will declare him openly to the Church, and in this manner I
will say: "Loving friends, I declare unto you, how that N. N. hath
been admonished: first, by myself in private, afterwards also by two
chaplains, thirdly, by two aldermen and churchwardens, and those of
the assembly: yet notwithstanding he will not desist from his sinful
kind of life. Wherefore I earnestly desire you to assist and aid me,
to kneel down with me, and let us pray against him, and deliver him
over to the Devil."
Luther did not mean that this should be done all at once; but that a day
should be appointed for the congregation to meet for joint consultation,
and according to the resolutions passed to choose and commission such
and such persons to wait on the offender, and to exhort, persuade and
threaten him in the name of the congregation: then, if after due time
allowed, this proved fruitless, to kneel down with the minister, &c.
Surely, were it only feasible, nothing could be more desirable. But
alas! it is not compatible with a Church national, the congregations of
which are therefore not gathered nor elected, or with a Church
established by law; for law and discipline are mutually destructive of
each other, being the same as involuntary and voluntary penance.
Chap. xxii. p. 290.
Wicliffe and Huss opposed and assaulted the manner of life and
conversation in Popedom. But I chiefly do oppose and resist their
doctrine; I affirm roundly and plainly that they teach not aright.
Thereto am I called. I take the goose by the neck, and set the knife
to the throat. When I can maintain that the Pope's doctrine is false,
(which I have proved and maintained), then I will easily prove and
maintain that their manner of life is evil.
This is a remark of deep insight: 'verum vere Lutheranum'.
Ib. p. 291.
Ambition and pride (said Luther), are the rankest poison in the Church
when they are possessed by preachers. Zuinglius thereby was misled,
who did what pleased himself * * * He wrote, "Ye honorable and good
princes must pardon me, in that I give you not your titles; for the
glass windows are as well illustrious as ye."
One might fancy, in the Vision-of-Mirza style, that all the angry,
contemptuous, haughty expressions of good and zealous men, gallant
staff-officers in the army of Christ, formed a rick of straw and
stubble, which at the last day is to be divided into more or fewer
haycocks, according to the number of kind and unfeignedly humble and
charitable thoughts and speeches that had intervened, and that these
were placed in a pile, leap-frog fashion, in the narrow road to the gate
of Paradise; and burst into flame as the zeal of the individual
approached,--so that he must leap over and through them. Now I cannot
help thinking, that this dear man of God, heroic Luther, will find more
opportunities of showing his agility, and reach the gate in a greater
sweat and with more blisters 'a parte post' than his brother hero,
Zuinglius. I guess that the comments of the latter on the Prophets will
be found almost sterile in these tiger-lilies and brimstone flowers of
polemic rhetoric, compared with the controversy of the former with our
Henry VIII., his replies to the Pope's Bulls, and the like.
By the by, the joke of the 'glass windows' is lost in the translation.
The German for illustrious is 'durchlauchtig', that is, transparent or
translucent.
Ib.
When we leave to God his name, his kingdom and will, then will he also
give unto us our daily bread, and will remit our sins, and deliver us
from the devil and all evil. Only his honor he will have to himself.
A brief but most excellent comment on the Lord's Prayer.
Ib. p. 297.
There was never any that understood the Old Testament so well as St.
Paul, except only John the Baptist.
I cannot conjecture what Luther had in his mind when he made this
exception.
Chap. XXVII. p. 335.
I could wish (said Luther) that the Princes and States of the Empire
would make an assembly, and hold a council and a union both in
doctrine and ceremonies, so that every one might not break in and run
on with such insolency and presumption according to his own brains, as
already is begun, whereby many good hearts are offended.
Strange heart of man! Would Luther have given up the doctrine of
justification by faith alone, had the majority of the Council decided in
favor of the Arminian scheme? If not, by what right could he expect
OEcolampadius or Zuinglius to recant their convictions respecting the
Eucharist, or the Baptists theirs on Infant Baptism, to the same
authority? In fact, the wish expressed in this passage must be
considered as a mere flying thought shot out by the mood and feeling of
the moment, a sort of conversational flying-fish that dropped as soon as
the moisture of the fins had evaporated. The paragraph in p. 336, of
what Councils ought to order, should be considered Luther's genuine
opinion.
Ib. p. 337.
The council of Nice, held after the Apostles' time, (said Luther) was
the very best and purest; but soon after in the time of the Emperor
Constantine, it was weakened by the Arians.
What Arius himself meant, I do not know: what the modern Arians teach, I
utterly condemn; but that the great council of Ariminum was either Arian
or heretical I could never discover, or descry any essential difference
between its decisions and the Nicene; though I seem to find a serious
difference of the pseudo-Athanasian Creed from both. If there be a
difference between the Councils of Nicea and Ariminum, it perhaps
consists in this;--that the Nicene was the more anxious to assert the
equal Divinity in the Filial subordination; the Ariminian to maintain
the Filial subordination in the equal Divinity. In both there are three
self-subsistent and only one self-originated:--which is the substance
of the idea of the Trinity, as faithfully worded as is compatible with
the necessary inadequacy of words to the expression of ideas, that is,
spiritual truths that can only be spiritually discerned. [4]
18th August, 1826.
Chap. XXVIII. p. 347.
God's word a Lord of all Lords.
Luther every where identifies the living Word of God with the written
word, and rages against Bullinger, who contended that the latter is the
word of God only as far as and for whom it is the vehicle of the former.
To this Luther replies: "My voice, the vehicle of my words, does not
cease to be my voice, because it is ignorantly or maliciously
misunderstood." Yea! (might Bullinger have rejoined) the instance were
applicable and the argument valid, if we were previously assured that
all and every part of the Old and New Testament is the voice of the
divine Word. But, except by the Spirit, whence are we to ascertain this?
Not from the books themselves; for not one of them makes the pretension
for itself, and the two or three texts, which seem to assert it, refer
only to the Law and the Prophets, and no where enumerate the books that
were given by inspiration: and how obscure the history of the formation
of the Canon, and how great the difference of opinion respecting its
different parts, what scholar is ignorant?
Chap. XXIX. p. 349.
'Patres, quamquam saepe errant, tamen venerandi propter testimonium
fidei.'
Although I learn from all this chapter, that Luther was no great
Patrician, (indeed he was better employed), yet I am nearly, if not
wholly of his mind respecting the works of the Fathers. Those which
appear to me of any great value are valuable chiefly for those articles
of Christian Faith which are, as it were, 'ante Christum' JESUM, namely,
the Trinity, and the primal Incarnation spoken of by John i, 10. But in
the main I should perhaps go even farther than Luther; for I cannot
conceive any thing more likely than that a young man of strong and
active intellect, who has no fears, or suffers no fears of worldly
prudence to cry, Halt! to him in his career of consequential logic, and
who has been 'innutritus et juratus' in the Grotio-Paleyan scheme of
Christian evidence, and who has been taught by the men and books, which
he has been bred up to regard as authority, to consider all inward
experiences as fanatical delusions;--I say, I can scarcely conceive such
a young man to make a serious study of the Fathers of the first four or
five centuries without becoming either a Romanist or a Deist. Let him
only read Petavius and the different Patristic and Ecclesiastico
-historical tracts of Semler, and have no better philosophy than that of
Locke, no better theology than that of Arminius and Bishop Jeremy
Taylor, and I should tremble for his belief. Yet why tremble for a
belief which is the very antipode of faith? Better for such a man to
precipitate himself on to the utmost goal: for then perhaps he may in
the repose of intellectual activity feel the nothingness of his prize,
or the wretchedness of it; and then perhaps the inward yearning after a
religion may make him ask;--"Have I not mistaken the road at the outset?
Am I sure that the Reformers, Luther and the rest collectively, were
fanatics?"
Ib. p. 351.
'Take no care what ye shall eat'. As though that commandment did not
hinder the carping and caring for the daily bread.
For 'caring,' read, 'anxiety!' 'Sit tibi curae, non autem solicitudini,
panis quotidianus'.
Ib. p. 351.
Even so it was with Ambrose: he wrote indeed well and purely, was more
serious in writing than Austin, who was amiable and mild. * * *
Fulgentius is the best poet, and far above Horace both with sentences,
fair speeches and good actions; he is well worthy to be ranked and
numbered with and among the poets.
'Der Teufel'! Surely the epithets should be reversed. Austin's
mildness--the 'durus pater infantum'! And the 'super'-Horatian
effulgence of Master Foolgentius! O Swan! thy critical cygnets are but
goslings.
N.B. I have, however, since I wrote the above, heard Mr. J. Hookham
Frere speak highly of Fulgentius.
Ib. p. 352.
For the Fathers were but men, and to speak the truth, their reputes
and authorities did undervalue and suppress the books and writings of
the sacred Apostles of Christ.
We doubtless find in the writings of the Fathers of the second century,
and still more strongly in those of the third, passages concerning the
Scriptures that seem to say the same as we Protestants now do. But then
we find the very same phrases used of writings not Apostolic, or with no
other difference than what the greater name of the authors would
naturally produce; just as a Platonist would speak of Speusippus's
books, were they extant, compared with those of later teachers of
Platonism;--'He was Plato's nephew-had seen Plato--was his appointed
successor, &c.' But in inspiration the early Christians, as far as I can
judge, made no generic difference, let Lardner say what he will. Can he
disprove that it was declared heretical by the Church in the second
century to believe the written words of a dead Apostle in opposition to
the words of a living Bishop, seeing that the same spirit which guided
the Apostles dwells in and guides the Bishops of the Church? This at
least is certain, that the later the age of the writer, the stronger the
expression of comparative superiority of the Scriptures; the earlier, on
the other hand, the more we hear of the 'Symbolum', the 'Regula Fidei',
the Creed.
Chap. XXXII. p. 362.
The history of the Prophet Jonas is so great that it is almost
incredible; yea, it soundeth more strange than any of the poets'
fables, and (said Luther) if it stood not in the Bible, I should take
it for a lie.
It is quite wonderful that Luther, who could see so plainly that the
book of Judith was an allegoric poem, should have been blind to the book
of Jonas being an apologue, in which Jonah means the Israelitish nation.
Ib. p. 364.
For they entered into the garden about the hour at noon day, and
having appetites to eat, she took delight in the apple; then about two
of the clock, according to our account, was the fall.
Milton has adopted this notion in the Paradise Lost--not improbably from
this book.
Ib. p. 365.
David made a Psalm of two and twenty parts, in each of which are eight
verses, and yet in all is but one kind of meaning, namely, he will
only say, Thy law or word is good.
I have conjectured that the 119th Psalm might have been a form of
ordination, in which a series of candidates made their prayers and
profession in the open Temple before they went to the several synagogues
in the country.
Ib.
But (said Luther) I say, he did well and right thereon: for the office
of a magistrate is to punish the guilty and wicked malefactors. He
made a vow, indeed, not to punish him, but that is to be understood,
so long as David lived.
O Luther! Luther! ask your own heart if this is not Jesuit morality.
Chap. XXXIII. v. 367.
I believe (said Luther) the words of our Christian belief were in such
sort ordained by the Apostles, who were together, and made this sweet
'Symbolum' so briefly and comfortable.
It is difficult not to regret that Luther had so superficial a knowledge
of Ecclesiastical antiquities: for example, his belief in this fable of
the Creed having been a 'picnic' contribution of the twelve Apostles,
each giving a sentence. Whereas nothing is more certain than that it was
the gradual product of three or four centuries.
Chap. XXXIV. p. 369.
An angel (said Luther) is a spiritual creature created by God without
a body for the service of Christendom, especially in the office of the
Church.
What did Luther mean by a body? For to me the word seemeth capable of
two senses, universal and special:--first, a form indicating to A. B. C.
&c., the existence and finiteness of some one other being
'demonstrative' as 'hic', and 'disjunctive' as 'hic et non ille'; and in
this sense God alone can be without body: secondly, that which is not
merely 'hic distinctive', but 'divisive'; yea, a product divisible from
the producent as a snake from its skin, a precipitate and death of
living power; and in this sense the body is proper to mortality, and to
be denied of spirits made perfect as well as of the spirits that never
fell from perfection, and perhaps of those who fell below mortality,
namely, the devils.
But I am inclined to hold that the Devil has no one body, nay, no body
of his own; but ceaselessly usurps or counterfeits bodies; for he is an
everlasting liar, yea, the lie which is the colored shadow of the
substance that intercepts the truth.
Ib. p. 370.
The devils are in woods, in waters, in wildernesses, and in dark pooly
places, ready to hurt and prejudice people, &c.
"The angel's like a flea,
The devil is a bore;--"
No matter for that! quoth S.T.C.
I love him the better therefore.
Yes! heroic Swan, I love thee even when thou gabbiest like a goose; for
thy geese helped to save the Capitol.
Ib. p. 371.
I do verily believe (said Luther) that the day of judgment draweth
near, and that the angels prepare themselves for the fight and combat,
and that within the space of a few hundred years they will strike down
both Turk and Pope into the bottomless pit of hell.
Yea! two or three more such angels as thyself, Martin Luther, and thy
prediction would be, or perhaps would now have been, accomplished.
Chap. XXXV. p. 388.
Cogitations of the understanding do produce no melancholy, but the
cogitations of the will cause sadness; as, when one is grieved at a
thing, or when one doth sigh and complain, there are melancholy and
sad cogitations, but the understanding is not melancholy.
Even in Luther's lowest imbecilities what gleams of vigorous good sense!
Had he understood the nature and symptoms of indigestion together with
the detail of subjective seeing and hearing, and the existence of
mid-states of the brain between sleeping and waking, Luther would have
been a greater philosopher; but would he have been so great a hero? I
doubt it. Praised be God whose mercy is over all his works; who bringeth
good out of evil, and manifesteth his wisdom even in the follies of his
servants, his strength in their weakness!
Ib. p. 389.
Whoso prayeth a Psalm shall be made thoroughly warm.
'Expertus credo'.
19th Aug. 1826.
I have learnt to interpret for myself the imprecating verses of the
Psalms of my inward and spiritual enemies, the old Adam and all his
corrupt menials; and thus I am no longer, as I used to be, stopped or
scandalized by such passages as vindictive and anti-Christian.
Ib.
The Devil (said Luther) oftentimes objected and argued against me the
whole cause which, through God's grace, I lead. He objecteth also
against Christ. But better it were that the Temple brake in pieces
than that Christ should therein remain obscure and hid.
Sublime!
Ib.
In Job are two chapters concerning 'Behemoth' the whale, that by
reason of him no man is in safety. * * These are colored words and
figures whereby the Devil is signified and showed.
A slight mistake of brother Martin's. The 'Behemoth' of Job is beyond a
doubt neither whale nor devil, but, I think, the hippopotamus; who is
indeed as ugly as the devil, and will occasionally play the devil among
the rice-grounds; but though in this respect a devil of a fellow, yet on
the whole he is too honest a monster to be a fellow of devils. 'Vindiciae
Behemoticae'.
Chap. XXXVI. p. 390.
'Of Witchcraft'.
It often presses on my mind as a weighty argument in proof of at least a
negative inspiration, an especial restraining grace, in the composition
of the Canonical books, that though the writers individually did (the
greater number at least) most probably believe in the objective reality
of witchcraft, yet no such direct assertions as these of Luther's, which
would with the vast majority of Christians have raised it into an
article of faith, are to be found in either Testament. That the 'Ob' and
'Oboth' of Moses are no authorities for this absurd superstition, has
been unanswerably shewn by Webster. [5]
Chap. XXXVII. p. 398.
To conclude, (said Luther), I never yet knew a troubled and perplexed
man, that was right in his own wits.
A sound observation of great practical utility. Edward Irving should be
aware of this in dealing with conscience-troubled (but in fact
fancy-vexed) women.
Ib.
It was not a thorn in the flesh touching the unchaste love he bore
towards Tecla, as the Papists dream.
I should like to know how high this strange legend can be traced. The
other tradition that St. Paul was subject to epileptic fits, has a less
legendary character. The phrase 'thorn in the flesh' is scarcely
reconcilable with Luther's hypothesis, otherwise than as doubts of the
objectivity of his vision, and of his after revelations may have been
consequences of the disease, whatever that might be.
Ib. p. 399.
Our Lord God doth like a printer, who setteth the letters backwards;
we see and feel well his setting, but we shall see the print yonder in
the life to come.
A beautiful simile. Add that even in this world the lives, especially
the autobiographies, of eminent servants of Christ, are like the
looking-glass or mirror, which, reversing the types, renders them
legible to us.
Ib. p. 403.
'Indignus sum, sed dignus fui--creari a Deo', &c. Although I am
unworthy, yet nevertheless 'I have been' worthy, 'in that I am'
created of God, &c.
The translation does not give the true sense of the Latin. It should be
'was' and 'to be'. The 'dignus fui' has here the sense of 'dignum me
habuit Deus'. See Herbert's little poem in the Temple:
Sweetest Saviour, if my soul
Were but worth the having,
Quickly should I then control
Any thought of waving;
But when all my care and pains
Cannot give the name of gains
To thy wretch so full of stains,
What delight or hope remains?
Ib. p. 404.
The chiefest physic for that disease (but very hard and difficult it
is to be done) is, that they firmly hold such cogitations not to be
theirs, but that most sure and certain they come of the Devil.
More and more I understand the immense difference between the
Faith-article of 'the Devil' ([Greek: tou Ponaerou]) and the
superstitious fancy of devils: 'animus objectivus dominationem in'
[Greek: ton Eimi] 'affectans'; [Greek: outos to mega organon Diabolou
hyparchei].
Chap. XLIV. p. 431.
I truly advise all those (said Luther) who earnestly do affect the
honor of Christ and the Gospel, that they would be enemies to Erasmus
Roterodamus, for he is a devaster of religion. Do but read only his
dialogue 'De Peregrinatione', where you will see how he derideth and
flouteth the whole religion, and at last concludeth out of single
abominations, that he rejecteth religion, &c.
Religion here means the vows and habits of the religious or those bound
to a particular life;--the monks, friars, nuns, in short, the regulars
in contradistinction from the laity and the secular Clergy.
Ib. p. 432.
Erasmus can do nothing but cavil and flout, he cannot confute. If
(said Luther) I were a Papist, so could I easily overcome and beat
him. For although he flouteth the Pope with his ceremonies, yet he
neither hath confuted nor overcome him; no enemy is beaten nor
overcome with mocking, jeering, and flouting.
Most true; but it is an excellent pioneer and an excellent 'corps de
reserve', cavalry for pursuit, and for clearing the field of battle, and
in the first use Luther was greatly obliged to Erasmus. But such utter
unlikes cannot but end in dislikes, and so it proved between Erasmus and
Luther. Erasmus, might the Protestants say, wished no good to the Church
of Rome, and still less to our party: it was with him 'Rot her and Dam
us'!
Chap. XLVIII. p. 442.
David's example is full of offences, that so holy a man, chosen of
God, should fall into such great abominable sins and blasphemies;
when as before he was very fortunate and happy, of whom all the
bordering kingdoms were afraid, for God was with him.
If any part of the Old Testament be typical, the whole life and
character of David, from his birth to his death, are eminently so. And
accordingly the history of David and his Psalms, which form a most
interesting part of his history, occupies as large a portion of the Old
Testament as all the others. The type is two-fold-now of the Messiah,
now of the Church, and of the Church in all its relations, persecuted,
victorious, backsliding, penitent. N.B. I do not find David charged with
any vices, though with heavy crimes. So it is with the Church. Vices
destroy its essence.
Ib.
The same was a strange kind of offence (said Luther) that the world
was offended at him who raised the dead, who made the blind to see,
and the deaf to hear, &c.
Our Lord alluded to the verse that immediately follows and completes his
quotations from Isaiah. [6] I, Jehovah, will come and do this. That he
implicitly declared himself the Jehovah, the Word,--this was the
offence.
Chap. XLIX. p. 443.
God wills, may one say, that we should serve him freewillingly, but he
that serveth God out of fear of punishment of hell, or out of a hope
and love of recompence, the same serveth and honoreth God not freely;
therefore such a one serveth God not uprightly nor truly.
_Answer_. This argument (said Luther) is Stoical, &c.
A truly wise paragraph. Pity it was not expounded. God will accept our
imperfections, where their face is turned toward him, on the road to the
glorious liberty of the Gospel.
Chap. L. p. 446.
It is the highest grace and gift of God to have an honest, a
God-fearing, housewifely consort, &c. But God thrusteth many into the
state of matrimony before they be aware and rightly bethink
themselves.
The state of matrimony (said Luther) is the chiefest state in the
world after religion, &c.
Alas! alas! this is the misery of it, that so many wed and so few are
Christianly married! But even in this the analogy of matrimony to the
religion of Christ holds good: for even such is the proportion of
nominal to actual Christians;--all _christened_, how few baptized! But
in true matrimony it is beautiful to consider, how peculiarly the
marriage state harmonizes with the doctrine of justification by free
grace through faith alone. The little quarrels, the imperfections on
both sides, the occasional frailties, yield to the one thought,--there
is love at the bottom. If sickness or other sorer calamity visit me, how
would the love then blaze forth! The faults are there, but they are not
imprinted. The prickles, the acrid rind, the bitterness or sourness, are
transformed into the ripe fruit, and the foreknowledge of this gives the
name and virtue of the ripe fruit to the fruit yet green on the bough.
Ib. p. 447.
The causers and founders of matrimony are chiefly God's commandments,
&c. It is a state instituted by God himself, visited by Christ in
person, and presented with a glorious present; for God said, 'It is
not good that the man should be alone': therefore the wife should be a
help to the husband, to the end that human generations may be
increased, and children nurtured to God's honour, and to the profit of
people and countries; also to keep our bodies in sanctification.
(Add) and in mutual reverence, our spirits in a state of love and
tenderness; and our imaginations pure and tranquil.
In a word, matrimony not only preserveth human generations so that the
same remain continually, but it preserveth the generations human.
Ib. p. 450.
In the synod at Leipzig the lawyers concluded that secret contractors
should be punished with banishment and be disinherited. Whereupon
(said Luther) I sent them word that I would not allow thereof, it were
too gross a proceeding, &c. But nevertheless I hold it fitting, that
those which in such sort do secretly contract themselves, ought
sharply to be reproved, yea, also in some measure severely punished.
What a sweet union of prudence and kind nature! Scold them sharply, and
perhaps let them smart a while for their indiscretion and disobedience;
and then kiss and make it up, remembering that young folks will be young
folks, and that love has its own law and logic.
Chap. LIX. p. 481.
The presumption and boldness of the sophists and School-divines is a
very ungodly thing, which some of the Fathers also approved of and
extolled; namely of spiritual significations in the Holy Scripture,
whereby she is pitifully tattered and torn in pieces. It is an apish
work in such sort to juggle with Holy Scripture: it is no otherwise
than if I should discourse of physic in this manner: the fever is a
sickness, rhubarb is the physic. The fever signified! the sins
--rhubarb is Jesus Christ, &c.
Who seeth not here (said Luther) that such significations are mere
juggling tricks? _Even so_ and after the same manner are they deceived
that say, Children ought to be baptized again, because they had not
faith.
For the life of me, I cannot find the 'even so' in this sentence. The
watchman cries, 'half-past three o'clock.' Even so, and after the same
manner, the great Cham of Tartary has a carbuncle on his nose.
Chap. LX. p. 483.
George in the Greek tongue, is called a 'builder', that buildeth
countries and people with justice and righteousness, &c.
A mistake for a tiller or boor, from 'Bauer', 'bauen'. The latter hath
two senses, to build and to bring into cultivation.
Chap. LXX. p. 503.
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