Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/266

262 FAMILIAR COLLOQUIES. the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, and every living creature that inoveth upon the face of the earth.” What use was there of the government of them, if it were not lawful to eat them? Fi. O cruel master! do you eat your men and maid-servants, your wife and children? Why don’t you at the same time eat your chamber-pot, for you are master of that too? Bu. But, prithee, hear me again, thou silly saltfishmonger. There is a real use of other things, and not a bare name of dominion only. A horse carries me upon its back, and a camel my baggage, but what use are fish of but to be eaten? Fi. As if there were not abundance of fish that are good for physic. And besides, there are a great many that were created merely for the sake of contemplation, and to carry us forth to admire their Creator. It may be you don’t believe that dolphins carry men on their backs. In the last place, there are some fish that are useful to foretell a tempest, as the echinus or sea-urchin; and would you not wish to have such a servant in your own house?

Bu. Suppose that be granted, that before the flood it was not lawful to eat any food but the fruits of the earth, it was no great matter to abstain from those things the necessity of the body did not require, and in the killing of which was cruelty; yet you will allow that in the beginning the eating of living creatures was permitted, by reason of the weakness of human bodies. The deluge had brought in a cold temperament, and at this time we see those that live in cold climates are greater eaters than others in hotter, and the flood had either quite destroyed or at least spoiled the products of the earth. Fi. That is granted. Bu. And yet after the deluge they lived above two hundred years. Fi. I believe they did. Bu. Why then did God afterwards, as Moses commanded, tie up persons of a weaker constitution and shorter lived to some particular kinds of living creatures, which He permitted to those of a stronger without exception? Fi. Just as if it were my province to give a reason for whab God did. But I believe that God did then as masters do now, who contract their indulgence towards their servants when they see them abuse their lenity. So we forbear to feed a horse with oats and beans when he grows pampered and too mettlesome, give him hay more sparingly, and ride him with a curb bridle and a sharper spur. Mankind had thrown off all reverence of the Deity, and lived as licentiously as if there was no God at all. Upon this account the lattices of the law and bars of ceremonies, the bridles of threatenings and precepts, were made use of to bring them to know themselves. Bu. What then, do those bars of the law hold us in at this day too? Fi. Inasmuch as the asperity of carnal servitude is removed, we being by the gospel adopted sons of God, there being an augmentation of grace, there is a diminution of the number of precepts.

Bu. How comes it to pass that when God calls His covenant everlasting, and Christ denies that He dissolved the law, but fulfilled it, by what confidence, I say, do men of after-ages dare to abrogate good part of it? Fi. That law was not given to the Gentiles, and therefore it seemed meet to the apostles not to burden them with the load of circumcision, lest, as the Jews even at this day do, they should rather place the hope of their salvation in corporeal observances, than in faith and love towards God. Bu. I forbear to speak of the Gen-