But you will perceive that Christ, becoming the interpreter of his own simile of the branch and the vine here, expressly declares what he would have the word ‘nothing’ understood to be; namely, that apart from Christ, a man is cast out and withers.655 And what else can ‘cast out’ and ‘withers’ mean, if not that he is delivered over to the dominion of the devil, and is continually made worse? And to grow worse and worse is not to have power, nor to endeavour. The withering branch, the more it withers, the more it is made ready for burning. If Christ had not thus opened and applied this simile, nobody would have dared to open and apply it this way. It is therefore established that the word ‘nothing’ must be taken literally here, according to its natural import. 656
Let us now also look into the examples by which Diatribe proves that ‘nothing’ in some places is taken for ‘a little,’ in order to show that in this part of her argumentation also, she is nothing, and effects nothing.
Yet, even if she had proved something here, she would have effected nothing — such a perfect nothing is she, in all her parts and in all her means. 657 She avers,
‘It is a common saying that a man does nothing, if he does not obtain what he seeks; but still, the man who endeavours frequently makes some way towards his object.’
I reply that I never heard that this is a common saying; you take the liberty of imagining so. Words (so far as they give names to things 658) must be considered according to the subject matter, and with relation to the intention of the speaker. Now, a man never calls that ‘nothing,’ which he endeavours when in action; nor is he speaking of his endeavour when he talks about ‘nothing,’ but of its effect. This is what a man is looking at when he says, ‘that man does nothing, or effects nothing;’ that is, ‘he has not reached his goal; he has not obtained it.’ — Besides, if your instance proves anything (which is not the case, however), it makes more for me than for you. For this is the very point I am maintaining and wish to have proved: that Freewill does many things which are but nothing in the sight of God.659 What is the use of her endeavouring, if she does not gain what she seeks? Hence, let Diatribe turn whichever way she will, she founders and confutes herself. This is usually the case with advocates who plead a bad cause.
SECT. 52. 1Cor 3.7; 13.2; Joh 3.27.
Thus again, Diatribe is unhappy in her instance which she adduces from Paul, “Neither is he that plants anything, nor he that waters, but God who gives the increase.” (1Cor 3.7) She says that what is of little moment, and useless of itself, Paul calls ‘nothing,’
Who is this? What, you call the ministry of the word ‘useless of itself,’ and ‘of small moment’ — that ministry which Paul extols with such great praises everywhere else, and especially in 2Cor 3.5-8, where he calls it the ministration of life and the ministration of glory? Again you are guilty of neither considering the subject matter, nor the intention of the speaker. With respect to giving the increase, the planter and the waterer are nothing; but with respect to planting and watering they are not nothing. For it is the chief work of the Spirit in the church of God, to teach and to exhort. This is what Paul means, and his words very clearly express this. But again, granting that this inapplicable example also applies, like the other, it will stand on my side. For I am maintaining that Freewill is ‘nothing ‘ — that is, it is ‘useless of itself’ before God, as you explain this text. For we speak of this kind of existence, well-knowing that the ungodly will is ‘a something,’ and not ‘a mere nothing.’ 660
So again, with regard to that saying in 1Cor 13.2, “If I do not have charity, I am nothing.” I do not see why she adduces this example, unless she quests after number and multitude, or thinks that we lack arms with which to dispatch her. For the man who does not have charity, is truly and strictly ‘nothing’ before God.
I maintain the same thing with respect to Freewill. So that this example also stands up for me against Diatribe herself, unless Diatribe is still ignorant of what our ground of battle is. 661 We are not speaking of an existence of nature; but of an existence of grace, as they call it. We know that Freewill performs certain natural acts; that she eats, and drinks, and begets children, and rules the house. So that Diatribe might have forborne mocking us with that nonsensical saying, which is like the ramble of delirium, that if we insist on this word ‘nothing,’ then a man cannot even sin, without Christ.’ On the contrary, even Luther admits that Freewill has a power to commit sin, though it has no other power! The wise Diatribe, you see, must have her joke, even on a serious subject.
What we affirm is that, without the grace of God, man still remains under the control of the general omnipotence of God, who performs, who moves, who carries away all things by a necessary and infallible course. But what the man so carried away does, is “nothing” —that is, it is nothing before God, and it is accounted nothing but sin. Thus — with regard to a being of grace — he is nothing who does not have charity. After confessing of her own accord that we are treating evangelical fruit in this verse, fruit which is not produced without Christ, why does Diatribe then instantly turn aside from the question at issue, begin a strange song, and cavil about natural operations and human fruits? Why — if not that a man who is destitute of the truth, is never consistent with himself anywhere? 662
So again, that saying in John 3.27, “A man can receive nothing, unless it is given to him from heaven.”
John speaks of a man who assuredly was something already, and he denies that this man receives anything; that is to say, receives the Spirit with his gifts. For he speaks about this, and not about nature. 663 He had no need of Diatribe’s instructions, surely, to teach him that the man already had eyes, nose, ears, mouth, mind, will, reason, and all the other properties of a man. Perhaps Diatribe thinks that when the Baptist spoke of a man, he was so mad as to be thinking of Plato’s chaos, or Leucippus’ vacuum, or Aristotle’s infinite, or some other ‘nothing,’ which was at last to be made ‘something’ by a gift from heaven! What! Is she bringing examples from Scripture to purposely sport in this way with so weighty a subject? To what purpose is it, then, that she brings forward such a redundancy of material? Is it to teach us that fire, escape from evil, effort towards good, and all the rest, proceed from heaven — as if any man did not know this, or denied it?
I am speaking of grace; or, as she has expressed it herself, of Christ and gospel fruit. But meanwhile, she chatters away about nature, so that she may gain time, protract the cause, and throw dust in the eyes of the unlearned reader. With all this, however, she not only fails to adduce a single example of ‘nothing’ taken for ‘a little ‘ — which is what she undertook to do — but she even manifestly betrays herself to be one who neither knows, nor cares, what Christ is, or what grace is, or how grace differs from nature. This is a distinction which even the rudest of the Sophists knew, and beat out in their schools by the most common use. 664 Nor is she in the least aware, at the same time, that all her examples make for me, and against herself. Even this saying of the Baptist, “A man can receive nothing unless it is given to him from heaven,” proves that Freewill is nothing. Ah, this is the way to conquer my Achilles: Diatribe puts armaments into his hands with which to destroy her in her nakedness and defencelessness. Thus it is, that those Scriptures by which the inflexible dogmatist Luther drives all before him, are somehow scattered by a single wordling. 665
SECT. 53. Diatribe’s troop of similes is nothing, and go against her. — What she should have spoken to.
After this, she details 666 a great many similes by which all she does is to carry off the foolish reader, as her manner is, into foreign matters; meanwhile, quite forgetting her own cause. For instance, God preserves the ship, it is true, but still the mariner conducts it into port; so that the mariner does something. It is a distinct work, truly, which this simile ascribes to God on the one hand — that of preserving — and to the mariner on the other, that of guiding the ship into port. If it proves anything besides this, it proves that the whole work of
