Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/265

 Carlstadt sought to prove that whatever was meritorious in the words or deeds of a man was due wholly to God, and that man, of his own accord, could will nothing good, unless he received an influx of divine grace; in short, that God was the smith and our will the hammer with which he forged our salvation. Eck rebutted this opinion, which, if I understand aught in these matters, is by no means absurd. For almost three days he argued that merit was due partly to grace, partly to man's will. It finally came to this, that Eck con- ceded the whole good work was from God, but not wholly.* This fine distinction Carlstadt not only confuted on the spot, but afterwards, in a long public letter, exposed as an invalid fiction.

Luther followed Carlstadt to sustain the thesis that it was only by recent decretals that the Roman Church was proved to be superior to other Churches, against which stood the authority of Scripture and the Nicene Council. Eck left no stone unturned to overthrow this opinion; he summoned all the forces at his command, spending eight days on it and doing his best especially to make his opponent invidious by dragging in some Hussite articles. Luther at once under- stood the snare, and raged as though inspired by some spirit at being thus insidiously betrayed on a side issue. With great indignation he rejected some of the dogmas imputed to him, while embracing some of them as Christian, relying every- where either on well weighed testimonies of Scripture, or on the decrees of ancient councils. In short, his main effort was to remove far from himself the suspicion of favoring the Bohemian schism. Eck also bent his whole energy on im- pressing the audience with this opinion of Luther, no matter how much the latter rejected it. In like manner they debated on other things, the state of souls in purgatory, fear as the root of penitence, and indulgences, consuming nearly twenty days in all.

When they had finished each side claimed the victory. Eck triumphs in the opinion of all who like asses playing the harp do not understand the subject at all, men who from

'Totum sed not totaliter. O. S«itz: Der autkentische Text der leipMiger DU- putation, p. 54.

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