SECT. 38. Gen 8.21 and 6.5 maintained.
The second passage is from Gen. 8.21, “The imagination and thought of man’s heart are prone to evil from his youth.” And in chap. 6, “Every thought of man’s heart is intent upon evil continually.” Diatribe puts this off by saying, ‘The proneness to evil, which is in most men, does not altogether take away the freedom of the will.’
But does God, I ask, speak of most men rather than all men, when as if repenting himself after the flood, He promises to those who remained of men, and to those who would come after, that he would no longer bring a flood because of man? He subjoins as the reason, that man is prone to evil. It is as if he said, ‘If man’s wickedness were to be regarded, there would never be any ceasing from a flood. But from now on, I do not mean to look at man’s deservings,’ etc. So you see, God affirms that men were evil both before the flood and after it; making what Diatribe says about most men nothing. Then again, this proneness or propensity to evil seems a matter of small moment to Diatribe; as though it were within the limits of our own power to raise it up, 599 or to restrain it. But the Scripture expresses by this proneness, that constant seizure and impulse of the will towards evil. Why has Diatribe not consulted the Hebrew text here also? Moses says nothing about proneness in it; so that, you have no ground for cavilling. For thus it is written in chap. 6: “Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil all his days.” He does not say intent upon, or prone to evil, but absolutely evil; and nothing but evil is imagined and thought of by man all his life. The nature of its wickedness is described: that it neither does, nor can do otherwise, seeing that it is evil. For an evil tree cannot bear any fruit other than evil, according to Christ’s testimony. Mat 7.17
As for Diatribe’s cavil, ‘Why is space given for repentance, if repentance is in no way dependent on the will, but everything is wrought by necessity?’ my reply is that you may say the same about all the precepts of God. Why does he enjoin, if all things happen by necessity? He commands, that he may instruct and admonish men what they ought to do, so that having been humbled by the recognition of their own wickedness, they may attain to grace, as abundantly declared earlier. 600 So that this text, also, still stands its ground invincibly as the antagonist of Freewill.
SECT. 39. Isa 40.2 maintained.
The third passage is Isaiah 40.2: “She has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” Jerome, she says, interprets it as concerning divine vengeance, not as grace given in return for evil deeds. This means that if ‘Jerome says so, it is therefore true.’ I affirm that Isaiah asserts a certain proposition in most express words, and she throws Jerome in my face — a man, to speak in the gentlest terms, of no judgment or diligence. What has become of that promise, on the faith of which we made a compact, that we would plead the Scriptures themselves, and not human commentaries? 601
This whole chapter of Isaiah, according to the Evangelists, speaks of remission of sins as announced by the Gospel. In it they affirm that “the voice of him that cries” pertains to John the Baptist. Now, is it to be endured that Jerome, in his manner, imposes Jewish blindness on us as to the historical sense of the passage, and then imposes his own silly conceits by way of allegory, so that, through a perversion of grammar, we might understand a passage which speaks of remission, to speak of vengeance instead? What sort of vengeance is it, I ask, which has been fulfilled by preaching Christ? 602
But let us look at the words themselves in the Hebrew. “Be comforted, He says; be comforted, O my people;” or, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” Isa 40.1 I do not imagine that the one who commands consolation, inflicts vengeance. It then follows; “speak to the heart of Jerusalem and proclaim to her.” To speak to the heart is a Hebraism meaning, “to speak good, sweet and soothing things,” as in Gen 34.3. Sichem speaks to the heart of Dinah, whom he had defiled. That is, he soothed her in her sadness with soft words — as our translation has it. He explains what those good and sweet things are, which God has commanded to be spoken for their consolation, by saying, “For her warfare is finished, in that her iniquity is pardoned; seeing that she has received from the Lord’s hand, double for all her sins.” — ‘Warfare,’ which our manuscripts faultily render ‘malice,’ appears to the audacious Jewish grammatists,603 to denote a stated time. For thus they understand Job 7.1: “The life of man on the earth is warfare;” that is, there is a fixed time appointed to him. I prefer considering the term ‘warfare’ to be used literally, according to its grammatical sense; understanding Isaiah to speak of the course and labour of the people under the law, which was like that of combatants in the stadium.
For thus Paul chooses to compare both the preachers and hearers of the word to soldiers — as when he commands Timothy to fight as a good soldier, and to war a good warfare. And he represents the Corinthians as running in a race course. So again, “No man is crowned unless he strives lawfully.” He clothes both the Ephesians and the Thessalonians with armour, and boasts that he himself has fought the good fight, and the like in other places.604 So too in 1Kings [i.e., 1Samuel] it is written in the Hebrew text, that the sons of Eli slept with the women who were performing service (literally, warring) at the door of the tabernacle of the covenant. Moses also mentions their warfare in Exodus.605 Hence too, their God is called the Lord of Sabaoth; that is, the Lord of warfare or of armies.
Isaiah therefore declares that the warfare of a legal people with which they were harassed under the law, would be finished. According to the testimony of Peter in Acts 15.8-10, it is like an insupportable burden — being delivered from the law, they have been translated into the new service of the Spirit.
Moreover, this end of their most hard service, and this succession of a new and most free one, is not be given to them through their merit (since they could not even bear that service), but rather through their demerit. For their iniquity was freely forgiven them, and therefore their warfare is finished. Here are no obscure or ambiguous words. He says that their warfare is finished, because their iniquity is forgiven them — plainly intimating that, like soldiers under the law, they had not fulfilled the law, nor could they have fulfilled it, but they had been warring in the service of sin, and had been sinner soldiers.
As if God were to say, ‘If I would have the law fulfilled by them, then I am compelled to forgive them their sins; indeed, I am compelled at the same time to take away the law, because I see that they cannot help but sin. And they do that most of all when they are militating — that is, labouring to press the model of the law 606 — through their own strength.’ The Hebrew phrase “her iniquity has been forgiven,” denotes ‘gratuitous good pleasure,’ by which iniquity is made a present of (it is forgiven) without any merit; indeed, with absolute demerit. This is what he subjoins.
“For she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” This, as I have said, means not only the remission of sins, but a finished warfare. This is nothing else but —the law being taken away, which was the strength of sin; and sin being forgiven, which was the sting of death — to reign in twofold liberty, through the victory of Jesus Christ. This is what Isaiah means by saying, “from the hand of the Lord.” They have not obtained these things by their own strength or merits, but have received them through the conquests and free gift of Christ. “In all their sins,” is another Hebraism; agreeing with what is expressed in Latin by for or on account of their sins — just as in Hosea 12.12 it is said that Jacob served in his wife; that is, for his wife. And in the 17th Psalm, they have compassed me round in my soul; that is, for my soul. Isaiah therefore represents our merits, figuratively, to be the procuring cause of this twofold liberty; namely, the finished warfare of the law, and the forgiveness of sin; this is because our merits have only been sins, and all of them sins. Isa 64.6
Shall we then suffer this most beautiful and invincible text against Freewill to be polluted with Jewish filth, such as Jerome and Diatribe have daubed on it? God forbid! On the contrary, my friend Isaiah keeps his ground as the conqueror of Freewill. He makes it clear that grace is given, not for the merits or endeavours of Freewill, but for its sins and demerits; and
