e to do anything in divine and spiritual
matters were they never so small? * * * I confess that mankind hath a
free-will, but it is to milk kine, to build houses, &c., and no
further: for so long as a man sitteth well and in safety, and sticketh
in no want, so long he thinketh he hath a free-will which is able to
do something; but, when want and need appeareth, that there is neither
to eat nor to drink, neither money nor provision, where is then the
free will? It is utterly lost, and cannot stand when it cometh to the
pinch. But faith only standeth fast and sure, and seeketh Christ.

Luther confounds free-will with efficient power, which neither does nor
can exist save where the finite will is one with the absolute Will. That
Luther was practically on the right side in this famous controversy, and
that he was driving at the truth, I see abundant reason to believe. But
it is no less evident that he saw it in a mist, or rather as a mist with
dissolving outline; and as he saw the thing as a mist, so he ever and
anon mistakes a mist for the thing. But Erasmus and Saavedra were
equally indistinct; and shallow and unsubstantial to boot. In fact, till
the appearance of Kant's 'Kritiques' of the pure and of the practical
Reason the problem had never been accurately or adequately stated, much
less solved.

26 June, 1826.

Ib. p. 174.

Loving friends, (said Luther) our doctrine that free-will is dead and
nothing at all is grounded powerfully in Holy Scripture.

It is of vital importance for a theological student to understand
clearly the utter diversity of the Lutheran, which is likewise the
Calvinistic, denial of free-will in the unregenerate, and the doctrine
of the modern Necessitarians and ('proh pudor!') of the later
Calvinists, which denies the proper existence of will altogether. The
former is sound, Scriptural, compatible with the divine justice, a new,
yea, a mighty motive to morality, and, finally, the dictate of common
sense grounded on common experience. The latter the very contrary of all
these.

Chap. xii. p. 187.

This is now (said Luther), the first instruction concerning the law;
namely, that the same must be used to hinder the ungodly from their
wicked and mischievous intentions. For the Devil, who is an Abbot and
a Prince of this world, driveth and allureth people to work all manner
of sin and wickedness; for which cause God hath ordained magistrates,
elders, schoolm