The Bondage of the Will

RPM , Volume 14, Number 7, February 12 to February 18, 2012 The Bondage of the Will By Martin Luther DISCUSSION: SECOND PART Section CX. Sect. CX. ¢ IN the same way also it so continually repeats this: ¢ If man do nothing, there is no place for merit, and where there is no place for merit, there can be no place either for punishment or for reward.Œ ¢ Here again, it does not see, that by these carnal arguments, it refutes itself more directly than it refutes us. For what do these conclusions prove, but that all merit is in the power of Free-will?Œ And then, where is any room for grace? Moreover, supposing Free-willŒ to merit a certain little, and grace the rest, why does Free-willŒ receive the whole reward? Or, shall we suppose it to receive but a certain small portion of reward? Then, if there be a place for merit, in order that there might be a place for reward, the merit must be as great as the reward. But why do I thus lose both words and time upon a thing of nought? For, even supposing the whole were established at which the Diatribe is aiming, and that merit is partly the work of man, and partly the work of God; yet it cannot define that work itself, what it is, of what kind it is, or how far it is to extend; therefore, its disputation is about nothing at all. Since, therefore, it cannot prove any one thing which it asserts, nor establish its interpretation nor contradiction, nor bring forward a passage that attributes all to man; and since all are the phantoms of its own cogitation, Paul¡s similitude of the potterŒ and the clay,Œ stands unshaken and invincible ¢ that it is not according to our Free-will,Œ what kind of vessels we are made. And as to the exhortations of Paul, If a man purify himself from these,Œ and the like, they are certain models, according to which, we ought to be formed; but they are not proofs of our working power, or of our desire. Suffice it to have spoken thus upon these points, the HARDENING OF PHARAOH, the CASE OF ESAU, and the SIMILITUDE OF THE POTTER.