SECT. 17. Erasmus neither understands nor feels the vast importance of the question.
Here you fetch 125 a host of similes; in which you aim to abound, and to be thought very apt and expert.
You tell us, truly, that there are some diseases which are borne with less evil than they are removed with, such as leprosy and others. You also add the example of Paul, who distinguished between lawful and expedient things. A man may lawfully speak the truth, you say, to anybody, at any time, in any way he pleases; but it is not expedient for him to do so.
What an exuberant orator! But one who does not at all know what he is saying. In a word, you plead this cause as if your affair with me were a contest for a sum of money which is recoverable, or for some other very inconsiderable object. Its loss (being a thing of far less value than that dear external peace of yours) should not move anyone to such a degree that he is unwilling to submit, do, and suffer, as the occasion may require; nor render it necessary for the world to be thrown into such a tumult. You plainly intimate, therefore, that this peace and tranquility of the flesh, is far more excellent in your eyes than faith, conscience, salvation, the word of God, the glory of Christ — indeed, God himself.
I declare to you, therefore, and I entreat you to lay this up in your inmost soul: that I, for my part, am in pursuit of a serious, necessary, and eternal object in this cause. It is such and so great an object, that I must assert and defend it, even at the risk of my life — indeed, even if the whole world must not only be thrown into a state of conflict and confusion through it, but even rush back again into its original chaos, and be reduced to nothing. If you do not comprehend or feel these things, mind your own business; and give others leave to comprehend and to feel them, on whom God has bestowed this power.
For I am not such a fool, or such a madman, I thank God, as to have been willing to plead and maintain this cause for so long, with such resoluteness, and with such constancy (you call it obstinacy) amidst so many hair-breadth escapes with life, amidst so many enmities, amidst so many wiles and snares — in short, amidst the rage and frenzy of men and devils — for the sake of money (which I neither have nor desire); or for the sake of glory (which, even if I would, I could not obtain in a world that is so hostile to me); or for the sake of bodily life, of which I cannot ensure the possession for a single moment. Do you think that you are the only person who has a heart that is moved by these tumults? I am not made of stone, or born of the Marpesian rocks,126 any more than yourself.
But since it must be so, 127 I choose to endure the collisions of a temporal tumult for asserting the word of God with an invincible and incorruptible mind — rejoicing all the while in the sense and manifestations of his favour — rather than be crushed to pieces by the intolerable torments of an eternal tumult as one of the victims of God’s wrath. The Lord grant that your mind not be like Epicurus (I hope and wish He may!); but your words sound as though you consider the word of God and a future state to be mere fables. By virtue of the doctorial authority with which you are invested, you wish to propose to us that, in order to please pontiffs and princes, or to preserve this dear peace of yours, we should submit ourselves; and if occasion requires it, we should relinquish for a while the use of the word of God, as sure as that word is 128 — even though, by such a relinquishment, we relinquish God, faith, salvation, and every Christian possession. How much better Christ advises us, to despise the whole world rather than do this! Joh 12.25
SECT. 18. Peace of the world disturbed, is no argument against a dogma, but for it.
But you say such things, because you do not read, or do not observe, that this is the most constant fortune of the word of God: to have the world in a state of tumult because of it. Christ explicitly asserts this when he says, “I have not come to send peace, but a sword.” (Mat 10.34) And in Luke, “I have come to send fire on the earth.” (Luk 12.49) And Paul (2Cor 6.5) “In seditions,” etc. And the Prophet testifies the same thing in the second Psalm, with great redundancy, when he asserts that the nations are in a tumult, that the people murmur, that kings rise up, that princes take counsel together against the Lord and against his Christ. It is as if he had said, numbers, grandeur, riches, power, wisdom, justice, and whatever is exalted in the world, opposes itself to the word of God. In the Acts of the Apostles, see what happens in the world just through Paul’s preaching (not to mention the other Apostles), how he singly and solely stirs up both Gentiles and Jews; or as his enemies affirm in that same place, how he troubles 129 the whole world. The kingdom of Israel is troubled under the ministry of Elijah, as king Ahab complains. What a stir there was under the other Prophets! — while the Jews were all being slain with the sword, or stoned; while Israel was led captive into Assyria, and Judah was likewise led into Babylon. Was this peace? The world and its god neither can nor will endure the word of the true God; the true God neither will nor can be silent. When these two Gods are at war, what can there be but tumult throughout the world?
The wish to hush these storms is nothing but a wish to take the word of God out of the way, and stay the course. For the word of God comes for the very purpose of changing and renewing the world, as often as it comes. Even Gentile writers bear witness that change cannot occur without commotion and tumult, indeed, without blood.
It is the part of a Christian, now-a-days, to await and endure these things with presence of mind. As Christ says, “When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be afraid, for these things must first occur, but the end is not just yet.” I, for my part, would say that if I do not see these tumults, then the word of God is not in the world. But seeing them, I rejoice in my heart and disdain them, being most sure that the kingdom of the Pope and his adherents is about to fall. For the word of God, which is now running in the world, has especially invaded this kingdom. To be sure, I see you, my Erasmus, complaining of these tumults in many of your publications, and mourning over the loss of peace and concord. Moreover, by many expedients you try to cure this disorder, with good intention, as I truly believe; but this is a sort of gout, which mocks your healing hands. For here, to use your own expression, you are in truth sailing against the stream; indeed, you are extinguishing fire with stubble. Cease to complain; cease to play the physician. This confusion is of God in its origin, and in its progress; nor will it cease till it has made all the adversaries of the word like the mire of the streets. But it is a lamentable thing that it should be necessary to admonish you about these things — you who are as great a theologian as a scholar — for you ought to be filling the place of a master.
This, then, is the proper application of your aphorism (a very excellent one, though you misapply it), that ‘some diseases are borne with less evil, than removed.’ Let all those tumults, commotions, troubles, seditions, divisions, discords, wars, and whatever other things of this kind— with which, for the sake of the word of God, the whole world is shaken and clashed in conflict — be called diseases that are better borne, than cured.
These things being temporal, I say, are borne with less mischief than old habits of evil by which all souls must perish, unless they are changed through the word of God. So that, by taking this word of God away, you take away eternal blessings — God, Christ, the Spirit. But how much better it would be to lose the world, than to lose the Creator of the world, who can create innumerable worlds afresh, and who is better than an infinity
