SECT. 29. Exhortations, promises, etc. of Scripture, are useless.
After this, Diatribe objects that if no one has it in his power to keep what is commanded, then all the exhortations with which the Scripture so much abounds — together with those manifold promises, threatenings, expostulations, upbraidings, beseechings, blessings and cursings, and those numerous swarms of precepts — are necessarily without meaning. 380
Diatribe is always forgetting the question at issue, and proving something different from what she undertook to prove. Nor does she perceive how much more strongly everything she says, is against herself than against us. For she proves from all these passages a liberty and power to keep all the commandments, by force of the inference which she suggests from the words quoted. But all the while she meant only to prove ‘such a Freewill as can will nothing good without grace, together with a sort of endeavour, which is not to be ascribed however to its own powers.’ I see no proof of such endeavour in any of the passages quoted. I see only a demand for those actions which ought to be performed. I have said this too often already; but such frequent repetition is necessary because Diatribe so often blunders upon the same string,381 putting off her reader with an useless profusion of words.
SECT. 30. Deu. 30.11-14 considered.
Nearly the last passage which she adduces from the Old Testament, is that of Moses in Deut. 30.11-14: “This commandment, which I command you this day, is not above you, nor far off from you, nor placed in heaven, that you might say, who of us is able to ascend up into heaven to bring it down to us, that we may hear and fulfil it? But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.”
Diatribe maintains that it is declared in this place, that we not only have power to do what is enjoined, but that it is downhill work to do so; that is, it is easy or at least not difficult.
Thanks to you for your immense learning! If then Moses so clearly pronounces that there is not only a faculty in us, but even a facility to keep all the commandments, then why submit to all this toil? Why have we not at once produced this passage, and asserted Freewill in a field that is without opponent? 382 What need do we have for Christ any longer? What need of the Spirit? We have at length found a place which stops every mouth, and distinctly pronounces not only that the will is free, but that the observance of all the commandments is easy! How foolish Christ was to purchase that unnecessary Spirit for us at the price of his own out-poured blood, that it might be made easy for us to keep the commandments. It is a facility which it now seems that we possess by nature! No, let Diatribe herself recant her own words, in which she said that Freewill can will nothing good without grace; and let her now say that Freewill is of so great a virtue as not only to will good, but to keep even the greatest and all the commandments with great ease.
O, see what the result is of having a mind which feels no interest in the cause that is pleaded! See how impossible it is for this mind not to betray itself! Is there a need to confute Diatribe any longer? Who can confute her more thoroughly than she confutes herself? This, truly, is the animal which devours its own stomach. 383 How true is the proverb, ‘a liar ought to have a good memory!’
I have spoken on this passage in my commentary on Deuteronomy. 384 I shall therefore treat it concisely here, shutting out Paul from our discussion, who handles this passage with great power in Romans 10. You will perceive that nothing at all is affirmed here, nor is one single syllable uttered about facility or difficulty, about the power or the impotency of Freewill or of man, to keep or not to keep the commandment — nothing except that those who entangle the Scriptures in the net of their own consequences and fancies, must thereby render them obscure and ambiguous to themselves, in order to make what they please of them.
But now, if you have no eyes, at least turn your ears to what is spoken here, or strike your hand over the letters. 385 Moses says, ‘it is not above you, nor placed afar off, nor seated in heaven, nor beyond the sea,’ What is the meaning of ‘above you’? ‘afar off’? ‘seated in heaven’? or ‘across the sea’? Will they even make our grammar and the most common words obscure to us — till they make it impossible for us to say anything that is certain — just to affirm their claim that the Scriptures are obscure?
According to my grammar, it is not quality or quantity of human strength, but distance of place, which is meant by these words. What is expressed by ‘above you’ is not a certain power of the will, but a place which is above us. So the words ‘afar off,’ ‘across the sea,’ ‘in heaven,’ do not denote any power in man, but a place that is removed from us — upwards, to the right hand, to the left hand, backwards, or forwards. There may be those perhaps, who will laugh at my thick-headed way of speaking, when with out-stretched hands I present a sort of chewed morsel 386 to these full-grown gentlemen, as though they had not yet learned their A-B-C’s, and teach them that syllables must be combined into words. But what can I do, when I see men hunting for darkness in the midst of such clear light, and studiously wishing to be blind; after adding up such a series of ages to us, so many geniuses, so many saints, so many martyrs, so many doctors; after vaunting this passage of Moses with such vast authority — although they do not deign to inspect the syllables of which it consists, nor to put so much of a constraint on their own thoughts as to consider for once the passage of which they boast.
Go tell us now, Diatribe, how does it come to pass that one obscure individual sees what so many public characters, and the nobles of so many ages, have not seen? Assuredly, this passage proves they have not been seldom blind, if but a little child had sat in judgment upon them.
Then, what does Moses mean by these most obvious and clear words, if not that he has discharged to perfection, his office as a faithful lawgiver? He has brought it to pass that there is no cause why they did not know, and have in array before them, all the commands of God — no room is left for them to urge by way of excuse, that they did not know or did not have the commandments, or must seek them from some other quarter. The effect of this would be that, if they did not keep them, the fault would be neither in the law, nor in the lawgiver, but in themselves — for they have the law; and the lawgiver has taught them. So that, there is no plea of ignorance remaining for them, but only a charge of negligence and of disobedience. He is saying,
‘It is not necessary to fetch laws from heaven or from the parts beyond the seas, or from afar off; nor can you pretend either that you have not heard them, or that you do not possess them: you have them near to you, they are what you have heard by the command of God from my lips; you have understood them with your heart, and have received them as read and expounded by the mouth of the Levites 387 who are continually in your midst. This very word and book of mine is witness. It remains only that you may do them.’
What is ascribed here to Freewill, I ask, save that she is required to fulfil the laws which she has? And the excuse of ignorance and lack of laws is taken away.388
SECT. 31. Some of the Old Testament witnesses for Freewill.
These are nearly all the texts which Diatribe adduces from the Old Testament in support of Freewill; by releasing them, 389 we leave none remaining which are not released as well — whether she brings more, or intends to bring more, since she can bring nothing but a parcel of imperative, or conjunctive, or optative 390 verbs, by which is signified not what we can do, or
