‘The distinguishing glory of the Gospel is to teach humility, and to give God his due honour; and Augustine was singularly prepared for this by a course of internal experience. He had felt human insufficiency completely, and knew that in himself dwelt no good thing. Hence, he was admirably qualified to describe the total depravity and apostasy of human nature, and he described what he knew to be true…. Humility is his theme. Augustine taught men what it means to be humble before God. This he does everywhere with godly simplicity, with inexpressible seriousness. And in doing this, no uninspired writer ever exceeded, and I am apt to think none ever equalled him in any age…. Few writers have been equal to him in describing the internal conflict of flesh and spirit…. He describes this in a manner unknown to any but those who have deeply felt it: and the Pelagian pretensions to perfection oblige him to say more than otherwise would be needful to prove: that the most humble and the most holy have, through life, to combat indwelling sin….
Two more practical subjects he delights to handle: charity and heavenly-mindedness. In both he excels wonderfully… A reference of all things to a future life, and the depth of humble love, appear in all his writings — as in truth, they influenced all his practice, from the moment of his conversion.’
With all his darkness, therefore, abiding thick upon him (we are not to call darkness light because God commanded the light to shine out of it), He who forms the light and creates darkness made him a light to His church.
‘For a thousand years and upwards, the light of divine grace which shone here and there in individuals during the dreary night of superstition, was nourished by his writings. Next to the sacred Scriptures, these were the guides of men who feared God. Nor do we have, in all history, an instance of such extensive utility derived to the church from the writings of men.’
Beatus Augustinus is the title by which he is commonly quoted. And a word from him, for confirmation, was usually made an end of all strife by Luther, Calvin, and all the Oracles of the Reformation, when eleven hundred years had rolled over his ashes.
Martin Luther, etc.
To the venerable Mr. Erasmus of Rotterdam
Martin Luther sends grace and peace in Christ.
Introduction
Reasons for the Work.
IN replying so tardily to your Diatribe 67 on Freewill, my venerable Erasmus, I have done violence both to the general expectation and to my own custom. Till this instance, I have seemed willing not only to lay hold on such opportunities of writing when they occurred to me, but even to go in search of them without provocation. Some perhaps will be ready to wonder at this new and unusual patience (as it may be) or fear of Luther’s, who has not been roused from his silence even by so many speeches and letters which have been bandied to and fro among his adversaries, congratulating Erasmus upon his victory, and chanting an Io Pæan. 68
So then, this Maccabaeus and most inflexible Assertor has at length found an antagonist worthy of him, whom he does not dare to open his mouth against!
I am so far from blaming these men, however, that I am quite ready to yield a palm to you myself, such as I never yet did to any man. I admit that you not only very far excel me in eloquence and genius (a palm which we all deservedly yield to you — how much more such a man as I; a barbarian who has always dwelt amidst barbarism), but that you have checked both my spirit and my inclination to answer you, and have made me languid before the battle. You have done this twice over: first, by your art in pleading this cause with such a wonderful command of temper, from first to last, that you have made it impossible for me to be angry with you; and secondly, by contriving, through fortune, accident, or fate, to say nothing on this great subject which has not been said before. In fact, you say so much less for Freewill, and yet ascribe so much more to it, than the Sophists 69 have done before you (of which I shall speak more at large hereafter), that it seemed quite superfluous to answer those arguments of yours which I have so often confuted myself, and which have been trodden underfoot, and crushed to atoms, by Philip Melancthon’s invincible ‘Common Places.’ 70
In my judgment, that work of his deserves not only to be immortalized, but even canonized. So mean and worthless did yours appear when compared with it, that I exceedingly pitied you, who were polluting your most elegant and ingenious diction with such filth of argument, and was quite angry with your most unworthy matter, for being conveyed in so richly ornamented a style of eloquence. It is just as if the sweepings of the house or of the stable were borne about on men’s shoulders in vases of gold and silver! You seem to have been sensible of this yourself, from the difficulty with which you were persuaded to undertake the office of writing, on this occasion. Your conscience, no doubt, admonishing you, that with whatever powers of eloquence you might attempt the subject, it would be impossible to so gloss it over that I would not discover the excrementitious nature of your matter through all the tricksy ornaments of phrase with which you might cover it — that I should not discover it, I say, who though rude in speech, by the grace of God, I am not rude in knowledge.
For I do not hesitate, with Paul, to thus claim the gift of knowledge for myself, and to withhold it from you with equal confidence — while I claim eloquence and genius for you, and willingly withhold them from myself, as I ought to do.
So that I have been led to reason thus with myself: If there are those who have not drunk deeper into our writings, nor yet more firmly maintain them (fortified as they are by such an accumulation of Scripture proofs) than to be shaken by those trifling or good for nothing arguments of Erasmus, though dressed out, then I admit, in the most engaging apparel, such persons are not worth being cured by an answer from me. For nothing could be said or written which would be sufficient for such men, though many thousands of books were repeated a thousand times over. You might just as well plough the seashore and cast your seed into the sand, or fill a cask that is full of holes, with water. We have ministered abundantly to those who have drunk of the Spirit as their Teacher, through the instrumentality of our books; and they perfectly despise your performances; and as for those who read without the Spirit, it is no wonder if they are driven like the seed with every wind. To such persons, God would not say enough, if He were to convert all his creatures into tongues. Thus, I have almost determined to leave these persons, stumbled as they were by your publication, with the crowd which glories in you and decrees that you are a triumph.
You see then, that it is neither the multitude of my engagements, nor the difficulty of the undertaking, nor the vastness of your eloquence, nor any fear of you, but mere disgust, indignation, and contempt — or to say the truth, my deliberate judgment respecting your Diatribe, which has restrained the impulse of my mind to answer you. This is not to mention what also has its place here: that fever-like yourself, with the greatest pertinacity,
you take care to always be evasive and ambiguous. 71 More cautious than Ulysses, you flatter yourself that you contrive to sail between Scylla and Charybdis, 72 while you would be understood to have asserted nothing, yet again assume the air of an asserter. With men of this sort, how is it possible to confer and to compare, 73 unless one possessed the art of catching Proteus? 74 Hereafter I will show you with Christ’s help, what I can do in this way, and what you have gained by putting me to it.
Still it is not without reason that I answer you now. The faithful brethren in Christ impel me by suggesting the general expectation which is entertained of a reply from my pen — inasmuch as the authority of Erasmus is not to be despised,
