It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the whole Reformation can be summed up in this particular question. It is one of the many doctrines which the Wittemberg doctor maintained--that is all. It would, above all, be a strange illusion to hold, that the Reformation was fatalism, or an opposition to liberty. It was a magnificent emancipation of the human mind. Bursting the numerous bands with which thought had been bound by the hierarchy, and reviving the ideas of liberty, right, and examination, it delivered its own age, and with it ours also, and the remotest posterity. And let it not be said that the Reformation, while it freed man from human despotism, enslaved him by proclaiming the sovereignty of grace. No doubt, it wished to bring back the human will to the Divine, to subordinate the one, and completely merge it in the other; but what philosopher knows not that entire conformity to the will of God alone constitutes sovereign, perfect freedom; and that man will never be truly free, until supreme righteousness and truth have sole dominion over him? The following are some of the Ninety-nine Propositions which Luther sent forth into the Church, in opposition to the Pelagian rationalism of scholastic theology. "It is true that man, who is become a corrupt tree, can only will and do what is evil. "It is not true that the will, when left to itself, can do good as well as evil; for it is not free but captive. "It is not in the power of the will of man to choose or reject whatever is presented to it. "Man cannot naturally wish God to be God. His wish is that he himself were God, and that God were no God. "The excellent, infallible, and sole preparation for grace, is the eternal election and predestination of God.[284] [284] "Optima et infallibilis ad gratiam præparatio et unice dispositio, est æterna Dei electio et prædestinatio." (Luth. Op. (L.) i, 56.) The best and infallible preparation, and the only predisposition for grace, is the eternal election and predestination of God. "It is false to say that when man does all he can, he clears away the obstacles to grace. "In one word, nature possesses neither a pure reason nor a good will.[285] [285] "Breviter, nec rectum dictamen habet natura nec bonam voluntatem." (Ibid.) Briefly, nature has neither a right dictate nor a good will. "On the part of man, there is nothing which precedes grace, unless it be impotence and even rebellion. "There is no moral virtue without pride or sullenness, that is to say, without sin. "From the beginning to the end we are not the masters of our actions, but the slaves of them. "We do not become righteous by doing what is righteous, but having become righteous we do what is righteous. "He who says that a theologian who is not a logician is a heretic and an adventurer, maintains an adventurous and heretical proposition. "There is no form of reasoning (syllogism) which accords with the things of God.[286]