Indeed, what Christian does not, in point of fact, freely use this licence to condemn those who are the sworn captives of any particular sentiment? Unless (as your words almost express) you account Christians, in the main, to be the sort whose doctrines have no value, though they are foolish enough to jangle about them, and to fight the battle of counter-assertion! If on the contrary, you speak of necessary doctrines, what assertion can be more impious than for a man to say that he wishes to be at liberty to assert nothing in such cases? A Christian would rather say, ‘I am so far from delighting in the sentiment of the Sceptics that, wherever the infirmity of my flesh allows me, I would not only adhere firmly to the word of God, asserting what it asserts, but I would even wish to be as confident as possible in matters that are not necessary, and which fall outside the limits of Scripture assertion. For what is more wretched than uncertainty?
Again, what shall we say to these words subjoined to it: ‘to which in all things I willingly submit my judgment, whether I understand what they prescribe, or not?’ What is this that you say, Erasmus? Is it not enough to have submitted your judgment to Scripture? Do you also submit it to the decrees of the Church? What, has she the power to decree what the Scripture has not decreed? If so, then what becomes of liberty, and of the power of judging those dogmatists, as Paul writes in 1Cor 14.29, “Let the others judge”? It seems that you do not like that there should be a judge set over the decrees of the Church; but Paul enjoins it. What is this new devotedness and humility of yours, that you take away from us (as far as your example goes) the power of judging the decrees of men, and submit yourself to men, blindfolded? Where does the divine Scripture impose this on us? Then again, what Christian would so commit the injunctions of Scripture and of the Church to the winds, as to say, ‘whether I understand what they prescribe or not’? 84
You submit yourself, and yet you do not care whether you apprehend what you profess, or not. But a Christian is accursed if he does not apprehend with assurance, the things that are enjoined to him. Indeed, how will he believe, if he does not apprehend? For you call it ‘apprehending’ here, if a man assuredly receives an affirmation, and does not doubt it like a Sceptic. Otherwise, what is there that any man can apprehend in any creature, if ‘to apprehend a thing’ is to ‘perfectly know and discern it’? Besides, there would then be no place for a man to apprehend some things, and not to apprehend some things, at the same time, in the same substance. But if he has apprehended one thing, then he must have apprehended all. For instance, we must apprehend God before we can apprehend any part of his creation. 85
In short, these expressions of yours come to this: that in your view, it is no matter what any man believes anywhere, if only the peace of the world is preserved; and when a man’s life, fame, property, and good favour are in danger, he may be allowed to imitate the fellow who said, ‘They affirm, I affirm; they deny, I deny;’ and to account Christian doctrines nothing better than the opinions of philosophers and ordinary men; and for which it is most foolish to wrangle, contend, and assert, because nothing but contention and a disturbing of the peace of the world results from it. ‘What is above us, is nothing to us.’ You interpose yourself as a mediator who would put an end to our conflicts by hanging both parties, and persuading us that we are fighting for foolish and useless objects. This is what your words come to, I say. And I think you understand what I suppress here, my Erasmus. 86
However, let the words pass as I have said; and in the meantime, I will excuse your spirit on the condition that you manifest it no further. O fear the Spirit of God, who searches the reins and hearts, and is not beguiled by fine words. I have said this much to deter you from hereafter loading our cause with charges of positiveness and inflexibility. For upon this plan, you only show that you are nourishing in your heart a Lucian, or some other hog of the Epicurean sty, who, having no belief at all of a God himself, laughs in his sleeve at all those who believe and confess one. Allow us to be asserters, to be studious of assertions, and to be delighted with them. But you, meanwhile, bestow your favour on your Sceptics and Academics, till Christ has called you one also. The Holy Ghost is no Sceptic; nor has He written dubious propositions or mere opinions upon our hearts, but assertions that are more assured and more firmly rooted than life itself, and all that we have learned from experience. 87
I come to another head, which is a piece of this. When you distinguish between Christian dogmas, you pretend that some are necessary to be known, and some unnecessary; you say that some are shut up, and some are exposed to view. 88 Thus, you either mock us with the words of others, which have been imposed on you, or you try your hand at a sort of rhetorical sally of your own. You adduce in support of your sentiment, that saying of Paul’s, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God,” (Rom 11.33); and that of Isaiah too: “Who has assisted the Spirit of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor”? (Isa. 40.13)
It was easy for you to say these things, as one who knew that he was not writing to Luther, but for the multitude; or else as one who did not consider that he was writing against Luther — to whom you still give credit, I hope, for some study and discernment in the Scriptures. If not, see whether I do not extort it even from you. If I may also be allowed to play the rhetorician or logician for a moment, I would make this distinction: God, and the writing of God, are two things; no less than the Creator, and the creature of God, are two things. Now, no one doubts that there are many things hidden in God, which we are ignorant of, as He says himself about the last day, “Of that day no man knows, but the Father.” (Mat 24.36) And again, in Acts 1. “It is not for you to know the times and the seasons.” And again; “I know whom I have chosen.” 89 (John 13.18) And Paul says, “The Lord knows those who are His,” (2Tim 2.19) and the like. But it has been rumoured by profane Sophists (with whose mouth you also speak here, Erasmus) that some dogmas of Scripture are shut up in the dark, and not all are exposed to view. This is true; but they have never produced a single instance, nor can they produce one, by way of making good this mad assertion of theirs. Yet, by such hobgoblins as these, Satan has deterred men from reading the sacred writings, and rendered holy Scripture contemptible, that he might cause his own pestilent heresies, derived from philosophy, to reign in the Church.
SECT. 3. Christian truth is revealed and ascertained, not hidden.
I confess, indeed, that many passages of Scripture are obscure and shut up. This is not so much through the vastness of the truths declared in them, as through our ignorance of words and grammar. But I maintain that these do not at all prevent our knowledge of all things contained in the Scriptures. For what is there of a more august nature, that can yet remain concealed in Scripture, now that — after breaking the seals and rolling away the stone from the door of the sepulchre — that greatest of all mysteries has been spread abroad: that ‘Christ, the Son of God, is made man;’ 90 that ‘God is at the same time Three and One;’ that ‘Christ has suffered for us, and shall reign forever and ever?’ Are these things not known, and even sung in the streets? Take Christ from the Scriptures, and what will you find in them any longer?
The things contained in the Scriptures, then, are all brought forth into view, though some passages still remain obscure through our not understanding the words. But it is foolish and profane to know that all the truths of Scripture are set out to view in the clearest light, and to call the truths themselves obscure because a few words are obscure. If the words are obscure in one place, they are plain in another. And the same truth, declared most openly to the whole world, is both announced in the Scriptures by clear words, and left latent by means of obscure ones. But of what moment is it, if the truth itself is in the light, that some one testimony to the truth is yet in the dark, when meanwhile, many other testimonies to the same truth are in the light? Who would say that a public fountain is not in the light, because those who live in a narrow entry do not see it, while all who live in the
