Again, you know that I have no agreement with the Sophists on any subject. So, I deserved to have been spared by you, and not to have had their abuses thrown in my face. It was against me that you were to write in this book. I know how guilty the Sophists are, and I don’t want you to teach me, having already reprehended them abundantly. And I say this once for all: that as often as you confound me with the Sophists, and load my cause with their mad sayings, you act unfairly by me in doing so, and you very well know it.
SECT. 15. The argument, ‘some truths should not be published,’ is either inconsistent with Erasmus’ act, or out of place.
Let us now look into the reasons on which you build your counsel. Even if it were true that God is essentially present in the beetle’s cave and even in the common sewer, no less than in heaven (which reverence forbids you to assert, and you blame the Sophists for babbling so) — you still think it would be irrational to maintain such a proposition before the multitude.
In the first place, babble who may, we are not talking here about the actions of men, but about law and right — not how we live, but how we ought to live! Which of us lives and acts rightly in all cases? Law and precept are not condemned on this account, but rather we are condemned by them. The truth is, you fetch these materials of yours (which are foreign to the subject) from a great distance, and scrape many things together from all sides of you, because this one topic of the foreknowledge of God gravels you. And having no arguments to overcome it with, you try to weary your reader by a profusion of empty words, before you conclude, ‘But we will let this pass, and return to our subject.’
Then how do you mean to apply this judgment of yours, that there are some truths which should not be proclaimed to the common? Is Freewill one of these? If so, all that I said before, about the necessity of understanding Freewill, returns upon you. Besides, why do you not follow your own counsel, and withhold your Diatribe?
If you are right in discussing Freewill, then why do you find fault? if it is wrong to so do, then why do you discuss it? On the other hand, if Freewill is not one of these subjects, you are again guilty of running away from the point at issue, in the midst of the discussion, and of handling foreign topics with great verbosity, where there is no place for them.
SECT. 16. Erasmus’ three examples of truths ‘not to be published,’ considered.
It is not that you deal correctly with the example which you adduce, when you condemn it as a useless discussion for the multitude: that ‘God is in the cave, or in the sewer.’ You think of God too humanly. I acknowledge, indeed, that there are some frivolous preachers who, having neither religion nor piety, and being moved solely by a desire for glory, or an ambition for novelty, or an impatience for silence, gabble and trifle with the most offensive levity. But these men please neither God nor man, though they are engaged in asserting that God is in the heaven of heavens. On the contrary, where the preacher is grave and pious, and teaches in modest, pure, and sound words, such a man will declare such a truth before the multitude, not only without danger, but even with great profit. Should we not all teach that the Son of God was in the womb of the Virgin, and born from her bowels? And what difference is there between the bowels of a woman and any other filthy place? Who could not describe them nastily and offensively? Yet, we should deservedly condemn such describers, because there is an abundance of pure words to express this substance, of which it has become necessary to speak, 119 with beauty and grace. Christ’s own body, again, was human like our own. And what is filthier than this? Shall we then forbear to say that God dwelt in him BODILY, as Paul says? (Col 2.9) 120
What is more disgusting than death? What is more horrible than hell? But the Prophet glories that God is with him in death and in hell. (Psa 23.4)
The pious mind, then, does not shudder to hear that God is in death or in hell, each of which is more horrible than the cave or the sewer. Indeed, since Scripture testifies that God is everywhere, and fills all things, not only does such a mind affirm that He is in those places, but as matter of necessity, it will learn and know that he is there. Perhaps, then, if I were somehow seized by a tyrant, and thrown into a prison or a common sewer (which has been the lot of many saints), I must not be allowed to invoke my God there; or to believe that he is present with me — not until I have entered some ornamented temple! If you teach us that we ought to trifle in this way about God, and are so offended with the abiding places of his essence, you will at length not allow us to consider him as abiding even in heaven. For not even the heaven of heavens contains him, 2Chr 2.6 nor is it worthy to do so. But the truth is, you sting with so much venom,121 as is your way, that you may sink our cause and make it hateful, because by powers such as yours, you see this [argument] as insuperable and invincible.
I confess that the second instance which you adduce, that ‘there are three Gods’ is a stumbling block, if it is indeed taught: but it is not true, nor does Scripture teach it. The Sophists indeed speak so, and have invented a new sort of logic. But what is that to us?
With respect to your third and remaining example of confession and satisfaction, it is wonderful with how happy a dexterity you contrive to find fault. Everywhere you are prone to just skim the surface of the subject and no more — lest you appear on the one hand, not simply to condemn our writings, or on the other, not to be disgusted with the tyranny of the pontiffs 122 — for a failure in either of these points would by no means be safe for you. So, you bid adieu for a little while to conscience and to God, for what has Erasmus to do with the will of God and the obligations of conscience in these matters? You draw your sword against a mere outside phantom, and accuse the common people of abusing the preaching of free confession and satisfaction, 123 because their own evil nature may incline them to indulge the flesh — maintaining that, by necessary confession, they are somehow or other restrained. O famous and exquisite harangue! Is this teaching theology? Or is it to bind with laws and kill, as Ezekiel says, the souls which God has not bound (Eze 23; 13.19). At this rate, truly, you stir up the whole tyranny of the Popish laws against us, on the ground of their being useful and salutary, because the wickedness of the people is restrained by them!
But I am unwilling to inveigh against you, as this passage deserves. I will state the matter as it is, concisely.
A good theologian teaches thus: the common people are to be restrained by the external force of the sword when they do amiss, as Paul teaches (Rom 13.1-4); but their consciences are not to be ensnared by false laws, teasing and tormenting them for sins which God does not account sins. For the conscience is bound only by the commands of God. So that, this interposed tyranny of the pontiffs should be entirely taken out of the way. For it falsely terrifies and kills souls inwardly, while it harasses the body without, to no purpose. This tyranny, indeed, compels men to outward acts of confession and to other burdens, but the mind is not restrained by these things. Rather, it is exasperated to a hatred of God and of man. It hangs, draws and quarters the body outwardly, without effect, making mere hypocrites within. It is such that the
