It is the result of my observation, that of all the heresies and errors which have arisen from false expositions of Scripture, none have proceeded from understanding words in that simple sense in which they are bandied among men almost the world over; but they proceed from neglecting their simple use, and affecting tropes or inferences which are the laboured offspring of their own brain.
SECT. 4. Luther denies having used trope in his interpretation of “Stretch out” and “Make yourself.”
For example; I do not remember that I ever applied such a violent sort of interpretation to the words ‘Stretch out your hand to whichever you will,’ so as to say, ‘Grace will stretch out your hand to whichever she wills.’ — ‘Make yourself a new heart,’ that is, ‘Grace will make you a new heart,’ and the like; although Diatribe maligns me in a published treatise, as having spoken thus. In fact, she is so distracted and beguiled 466 by her tropes and inferences, that she does not know what she says about anybody.
What I really said is, when the words “stretch out your hand,” etc., are taken simply, according to their real import, and exclusive of tropes and inferences, they express no more than to demand that we stretch out our hand. By this is intimated what we ought to do according to the nature of the imperative verb — as explained by grammarians, and applied in common speech.
Diatribe, however, neglecting this simple use of the verb and dragging in her tropes and inferences by force, interprets it thus: “Stretch out your hand;” that is, you can stretch out your hand by your own power: “Make a new heart;” that is, ‘you can make yourself a new heart. Believe in Christ;” that is, ‘you can believe.’ Thus, it is the same thing in her account whether words are spoken imperatively or indicatively; if not, she is prepared to represent Scripture as ridiculous and vain. Yet these interpretations, which no scholar 467 can bear, may not be called forced and far-fetched 468 when used by theologians, but they are to be welcomed, as those of the most approved doctors who have been received for ages! 469
But it is very easy for Diatribe to allow tropes and to adopt them in this text. It is no matter to her whether what is said is certain or uncertain. No, her very object is to make everything uncertain; counselling as she does, that all dogmas on Freewill should be left to themselves rather than investigated.
It would have been enough for her, therefore, to get rid of sayings by which she feels hard-pressed, in any way she can. 470 But I — who am in earnest and not in sport, and in search of the most indubitable truth for establishing the conscience of men — must act very differently. For me, I say that it is not enough that you tell me there may be a trope here. The question is whether there ought to be and must be a trope here. If you have not shown me that there must necessarily be a trope here, then you have done nothing. Here stands the word of God: “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart!” If you tell me it must be understood, or may be understood as, ‘I will permit it to be hardened,’ then what I hear you say is that it may be so understood; I hear that this trope is commonly used in popular discourse, as in, ‘I have ruined you, because I did not instantly correct you when you were going astray.’ But this is not the place for this sort of proof. The question is not whether such a trope is in use. It is not the question whether a person might use it in this passage of Paul’s writings. The question is whether it would be safe for him to use it, and certain that he used it rightly, in this place; and whether Paul meant to use it. We are not inquiring about another man’s use of it — the reader’s use — but about Paul, the author’s use of it.
What would you do with a conscience which questioned you in this way? ‘Look, God the author of the book says, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.” The meaning of the word harden is obvious and notorious. But a human reader tells me, ‘to harden, in this place, means to give occasion for hardening, because the sinner is not instantly corrected.’
With what authority, with what design, with what necessity, is that natural meaning of the word so tortured for me? What if my interpreting reader is mistaken? Where is it proved that this torturing of the word ought to take place here? It is dangerous, it is even impious, to torture the word of God without necessity and without authority. Will you next tutor this labouring little soul 471 with, ‘Origen thought so?’ Or thus: ‘Cease to pry into such matters, seeing that they are curious and vain.’ She will reply, ‘Moses and Paul ought to have had this admonition given to them before they wrote; or rather, God himself. To what end do they distract us with curious and vain sayings?
SECT. 5. Diatribe must prove by Scripture or miracle, that the very passage in question is tropical.
This wretched evasion of using tropes, then, is of no service to Diatribe; but we must keep strong hold of our Proteus here, till he makes us perfectly sure that there is a trope in this identical passage, either by the clearest scripture proofs, or by evident miracles. We do not give the least belief to her merely thinking so, even if it is backed by the toil and sweat of all ages.472 But I will go further, and insist that there can be no trope here, but this saying of God must be understood in its simplicity, according to the literal meaning of the words. For it is not left to our own will to make and remake words for God as we please. What would be left in all of Scripture, which does not simply return to Anaxagoras’ philosophy, 473 ‘Make what you please of anything.’
Suppose I were to say, “God created the heavens and the earth;” that is, ‘He set them in order; but he did not make them out of nothing,’ Or, ‘He created the heavens and the earth;’ that is, the angels and the devils, or the righteous and the wicked. Upon this principle, a man has but to open the book of God, and by and by he is theologian. 474 Let it be a settled and fixed principle, then, that when Diatribe cannot prove that there is a trope in these passages of ours, which she is refuting, 475 then she is obliged to concede to us. And the words must be understood according to their literal import, even if she were to prove that the same trope is most frequently used elsewhere, in all parts of Scripture, and also in common discourse. If this principle is admitted, then all our testimonies which Diatribe meant to confute, have been defended at once; and her confutation is found to have effected absolutely nothing, to have no power, and to be a mere nothing. When she therefore interprets that saying of Moses, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart,” to mean ‘My leniency in bearing with a sinner leads others, it is true, to repentance; but it would render Pharaoh more obstinate in his wickedness’ — that is a pretty saying, but there is no proof that she ought to speak this way; and not being content with a mere ‘ipse dixit,’ 476 we demand proof.
So she interprets that saying of Paul’s plausibly; “He has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardens;” that is, ‘God hardens when he does not instantly chastise the sinner; he has mercy when, by afflictions, he shortly invites us to repentance.’ But what proof is there of this interpretation?
So too, is that of Isaiah, “You have made us err from your ways; you have hardened our heart from fearing you.” 477 What if Jerome, following Origen, interpreted it this way: ‘The man is said to seduce, who does not immediately call back from error.’ Who will assure us that Jerome and Origen interpret this passage rightly? And what if they do? It is our compact that we contest the matter not on the ground of any human teacher’s authority, but on the authority of Scripture alone. Who are these Origens and Jeromes, then, whom Diatribe throws in my face — forgetting her solemn covenant — when there are almost none of the ecclesiastical writers who handled the Scriptures more foolishly and absurdly than Origen and Jerome?
In a word, such a licentious interpretation comes to this: by a new and unheard-of sort of grammar, all distinctions are confounded. Thus, when God says, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart,” you change persons and understand him to say, ‘Pharaoh hardens himself through my leniency.’ ‘God hardens
