opposed to a fraction; liberrimam potestatem, ‘the absolute and unrestrained use of this integral power.’
[←392]
Quae constat contradictione manif. Its constituting elements are power and no power; which cannot subsist together: what becomes of the compound then?
[←393]
Originally “king of the flies.” Luther alludes to Beelzebub in Mat 12.24, which means ‘lord of the flies;’ also called ” prince of the demons” there. This is a double-insult to Diatribe: she is both weak and evil.
[←394]
Veram et justam aciem.
[←395]
Luther seems to have confounded this passage in Mat. 23 with Luke 19.41-44. “And when he had come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it.” etc. It is remarkable that the words which are so closely parallel in Luke 13 were not spoken at the same time with those recorded in Mat. 23. The latter were spoken in the Temple at the close of the Lord’s public ministry: the former while he was yet in Galilee.
[←396]
Suo illam jaculo. Nothing less than a complete Freewill can repel the objection here brought by Diatribe: therefore, either there is a complete Freewill, which she denies, or all such objections have no weight at all.
[←397]
Luther expresses this more briefly, but obscurely: ‘de secretâ, iliâ voluntate majestatis non esse disputandum.’
[←398]
Scrutandis. attingere. Scrut. comes nearest to our rummage: (videtur esse a scrutis, quasi sit ita in loco aliquo praetentare, et versare omnia, ut etiam scruta misceantur.” Hence it is applied to a dog hunting by the scent. It expresses the search for a thing, rather than the improper handling of the thing found. So Luther applies it here; as is plain from ‘attingere:’ the attaining to, or reaching the thing which was gone after.
[←399]
See 1Cor 1.23; 2.2; Col 2.3. In this latter text, Luther gives the sense strictly according to the original, which our version does not: en w eisi… apokrofoi.
[←400]
See above, Sect. 23. note a (page 171).
[←401]
Luther gives two answers to this cavil from Matthew 13 — 1. It is equally inconsistent with Diatribe’s statement. And 2. It is the incarnate God, not the God of Majesty, who speaks here. I must strongly object to this latter solution. It implies a difference, indeed a contrariety, between the mind of God and the mind of Christ; and thus it destroys the very end for which Christ came: the manifestation of God as His express image. It does this by not only negating the fulfilment of that design, but absolutely intimating that he has given us false views of God by showing a mind which is the reverse of His, as though Christ willed salvation where God wills destruction. Yet he tells us, “I did not come to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me.” Joh 6.38 “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish his work.” Joh 4.34 “I do nothing of my self, but as my Father has taught me, I speak these things.” Joh 8.28 “I have manifested your name to the men that you gave me out of the world.” Joh 17.6 And truly, though we will know far more of God hereafter, than we can know here — so that “Where there is knowledge, it will vanish away” — our knowledge of God will be derived to us through Christ (“the lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them to living fountains of waters”), and we will never know anything of God contrary to that which Jesus has exhibited of Him.
The true answer to this cavil in substance, however, has already been given. (See Sect. 28. notes t v x .) Standing in peculiar relations to Israel as his typical nation and his visible church, God had been calling that people to repentance from the beginning. Their history, their institutions, their lively oracles, their ordinary and extraordinary ministers, had caused them to be peculiarly, and above the rest of mankind, without excuse, even before Christ came. These were so many ‘I woulds, and you would nots’— not Christ saying and willing one thing, and the Father another; but Christ calling to them by the Father’s commandment, and they refusing. But now he had come personally and visibly among them, and could say, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sinned, but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hates me, hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no other man did, they would not have sinned; but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.” (Joh 15.22-24.) And what is all this, but God in certain assumed relations uttering his voice to those connected with him by these relations (in other words, declaring his legislative will), which those to whom it is uttered, should without doubt obey; and if they did obey, they would live according to his promise. But ‘ought to obey’ is not therefore ‘having the power to obey;’ and ‘not having the power to obey,’ is not ‘therefore the command is given in vain.’ Herein man is manifested; and God is manifested by his dealings with man. If Israel ‘would,’ then he would have been gathered; if Jerusalem ‘would,’ she would have remained to this day. But it was only by a grace not belonging to those relations by which God had connected himself with Israel during that period, that Israel could then have been made willing. Israel had all given to him which belonged to those relations. To withhold trial, or to administer super-creation and super-covenant grace, that he might stand, was no part of the dues which God had made himself a debtor to him to perform. And therefore Israel — justly tried, and no more than justly tried — having manifested what was in him with such aggravations of guilt, incurred a sentence which is declared to have been the requital of all the righteous blood that had been shed upon the earth from Abel to Zechariah. (vv. 35, 36.) The guilt of that generation was indeed extreme. But who would say that it was not the concentrated guilt of the intermediate ages and generations of that people, together with their own, which was so shortly to be visited upon them? Carnal reason will not hear of the children being visited for their fathers’ sins; but both Scripture and experience testify of this reality to the spiritual mind. The incarnate God, then, has no will contrary to the God of Majesty; or more intelligibly, Christ’s will and the Father’s will are one; Christ’s tears (see above, note m) do not imply any repugnance to the divine counsel. Here, the legislative is, as in the former instances, the executor of the personal will. With respect to the tears which he shed over that woe which he was shortly to inflict, and of which he well knew the length and breadth, the depth and height — it may be remarked that the Lord Jesus had a human soul, as part of his complete human person, distinct from his divine person (See Part ii. Sect. 8. note r) — and that such expressions might, without impropriety, be referred to that part of his complex frame. “We do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Heb 4.15 He had all the sinless feelings of a man, and therefore might not incongruously weep at such a woe. But where is the contradiction to Scripture and right reason, in understanding that God himself is moved with compassion at the very grief and pain which He inflicts in just judgment? “Therefore my bowels are troubled for him.” Jer 31.20 “Have I any pleasure at all in the death of him that dies?” Eze 18.32 “For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” Lam 3.33
It is pleasing to notice how nearly Luther approximates the truth — viz., ‘That Christ was eternally foreordained as Christ, and by a covenant subsistence, he assumed his person and personal relations as the risen God-man, before the foundation of the world’ — in the defence which he makes against the cavil that ‘Christ had not yet come.’ He declares that everything was done by the Prophets in Christ’s name, and that all expressions of mercy from the beginning may be rightly called the will of Christ. This will of Christ, according to Luther’s representation of it, is perfectly distinct from that of the Father (his language implies that it is contrary to it), so that there must have been a distinct agency of Christ from the beginning. Truly, this is so — though not exactly as Luther understood and would have it represented. I have often been surprised that, while most of those who know anything of Christ are ready enough to acknowledge that regard was had to his sacrifice from the beginning (for how else could any soul of man, such as Abel, Enoch, Abraham, David, etc., have been pardoned and accepted), so few distinctly recognise his personal subsistence and agency, as Christ, from the same period. Although it is in this regard that he is called “the Word,” “the Word of life,” “the life,” “that eternal life,” etc. And although he is a distinct personal agent, to use the blessed materials of his future coming and dying in the flesh — as a Priest-king — was not less necessary to the salvation and glorification of every