On the Bondage of the Will

Ne SAAT THEW}S9} BERCRE Re MARTIN LUTHER q Mf ON THE ¥ BONDAGE OF THE WILL; TO THE VENERABLE MISTER ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM. FAITHFULLY TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL LATIN BY EDWARD THOMAS VAUGHAN, M.A. VICAR OF ST. MARTIN’S, LEICESTER, RECTOR OP FOSTON, LEICESTERSHIRE, AND SOMETIME FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, WITH A PREFACE AND NOTES. . LONDON : SOLD FOR THE EDITOR, BY T. HAMILTON, PATERNOSTERROW; AND T. COMBE, LEICESTER, [Entered at Stationers’ Hall.] . : MNT AD ; Fe Bt é ; YG ee ge ee] | ih eee ee sis d Pie 29 Greviné i Sam Ragen en , S : y oak Wah kl ea bbe AT aire iP pete acne a op TO HIM WHO SITTETH UPON THE THRONE BY THE SIDE OF THE INVISIBLE FATHER, EVEN JESUS, MY LORD AND MY GOD! WHO KNOWETH THAT NOT BY MY FREEWILL, BUT BY HIS, THIS WORK, WHATSOEVER IT BE, WAS PROMPTED AND UNDERTAKEN, AND HATH NOW AT LENGTH BEEN EXECUTED, I DEDICATE IT: DESIRING THAT HIS WILL, NOT MY OWN, BE DONE BY IT; r AND FIRM IN THE HOPE, THAT HE WILL USE IT UNTO THE EDIFYING OF HIS PEOPLE.— poe yaaa ie see aut Ya BL. aaa “PUeT AOHe, Rae ial, <a AUTEN vane: d ie 1 g00 he. ayes win e. ee ee este wane one _ BAe PREFACE. I p&eEm it expedient to put the reader in possession of the circumstances under which this work was written ; for which purpose it is necessary that I premise a rapid sketch of Luther’s history, in its connection with Protestantism. Martin Luther was born in the year 1483, at Isleben, in Saxony. His father, who had wrought in the mines of Mansfield, became afterwards a proprietor in them ; which enabled him to educate his son, not only with a pious father’s care, but with a rich father’s liberality. After furnishing him with the elements in some inferior schools, “he sent him at an early age to the University of Erfurth: where he made considerable proficiency in classical learning, eloquence and philosophy, and commenced Master of Arts at the age of twenty. His parents had destined him for the bar; but after devoting himself diligently to the study of the civil law for some time, he forsook it abruptly, and shut himself up in a convent at Erfurth. Here he became remarkable for his diligence, self-mortification and conscientiousness ; occasionally suffering great agitation of mind from an ignorant fear of God. Habitually sad, and at intervals overwhelmed with paroxysms of mental agony, he consulted his vicar-general Staupitius ; who comforted him by suggesting, that he did not know how useful and necessary this trial might be to him: ‘God does not thus exercise you for nothing, said he ; you will one day see that he will employ you as his servant for ii PREFACE, great purposes.’—‘ The event, adds the historian, gave ample honour to the sagacity of Staupitius, and it is very evident that a deep and solid conviction of sin, leading the mind to the search of Scripture-truth, and the investigation of the way of peace, was the main spring of Luther’s whole after conduct ; and indeed this view of our reformer’s state of mind furnishes the only key to the discovery of the real motives, by which he was influenced in his public transactions.” It was not till the second year of his residence in the monastery, that he accidentally met with a Latin Bible in the library, when he, for the first time, discovered that large portions of the Scriptures were withheld from the people. Being sick this same year, he was greatly comforted by an elder brother of the convent, who directed his attention to that precious article of our creed, ‘ I believe in the remission of sins.’ Staupitius, he afterwards remarked, had spoken to him as with the voice of an angel, when he taught him that ‘ true repentance begins with the love of righteousness and of God;’ but the old monk led him up to the source of this love. —There may be, there is, a breathing after righteousness, and a feeling after God, which prepareth the way for this love; but there can be no real righteousness wrought, or real love of it and of God felt, till we have the consciousness of his forgiveness.— His aged adviser represented to him, that this article implied not merely a GENERAL BELIEF—for the devils, he remarked, had a faith of that sort—but that it was the command of God, that each particular person should apply this doctrine of the remission of sins to his own particular case; and referred him for the proof of what he said to Bernard, Augustine and St. Paul,—With incredible ardour he now gave himself up to the study of the Scriptures, and of Augustine’s works. Afterwards he read other divines, but he stuck close to Augustine; and held by him, as we find, to his last hour. PREFACE. iii In the year 1507, he received holy orders ; and in the next year was called to the Professorship of Divinity at Wittemberg, through the recommendation of his friend Staupitius ; who thereby gave him an opportunity of verifying his own forebodings concerning him. Here arose his connection with the elector Frederic, of Saxony ; which was so serviceable to him in all his after-conflicts, Frederic was tenderly anxious for the credit and success of his infant seminary; and Luther more than fulfilled his expectations, both as a teacher of philosophy and as a public minister. …