I truly advise all those (said Luther) who earnestly do affect the honor of Christ and the Gospel, that they would be enemies to Erasmus Roterodamus, for he is a devaster of religion. Do but read only his dialogue 'De Peregrinatione', where you will see how he derideth and flouteth the whole religion, and at last concludeth out of single abominations, that he rejecteth religion, &c. Religion here means the vows and habits of the religious or those bound to a particular life;--the monks, friars, nuns, in short, the regulars in contradistinction from the laity and the secular Clergy. Ib. p. 432. Erasmus can do nothing but cavil and flout, he cannot confute. If (said Luther) I were a Papist, so could I easily overcome and beat him. For although he flouteth the Pope with his ceremonies, yet he neither hath confuted nor overcome him; no enemy is beaten nor overcome with mocking, jeering, and flouting. Most true; but it is an excellent pioneer and an excellent 'corps de reserve', cavalry for pursuit, and for clearing the field of battle, and in the first use Luther was greatly obliged to Erasmus. But such utter unlikes cannot but end in dislikes, and so it proved between Erasmus and Luther. Erasmus, might the Protestants say, wished no good to the Church of Rome, and still less to our party: it was with him 'Rot her and Dam us'! Chap. XLVIII. p. 442. David's example is full of offences, that so holy a man, chosen of God, should fall into such great abominable sins and blasphemies; when as before he was very fortunate and happy, of whom all the bordering kingdoms were afraid, for God was with him. If any part of the Old Testament be typical, the whole life and character of David, from his birth to his death, are eminently so. And accordingly the history of David and his Psalms, which form a most interesting part of his history, occupies as large a portion of the Old Testament as all the others. The type is two-fold-now of the Messiah, now of the Church, and of the Church in all its relations, persecuted, victorious, backsliding, penitent. N.B. I do not find David charged with any vices, though with heavy crimes. So it is with the Church. Vices destroy its essence. Ib. The same was a strange kind of offence (said Luther) that the world was offended at him who raised the dead, who made the blind to see, and the deaf to hear, &c. Our Lord alluded to the verse that immediately follows and completes his quotations from Isaiah. [6] I, Jehovah, will come and do this. That he implicitly declared himself the Jehovah, the Word,--this was the offence. Chap. XLIX. p. 443. God wills, may one say, that we should serve him freewillingly, but he that serveth God out of fear of punishment of hell, or out of a hope and love of recompence, the same serveth and honoreth God not freely; therefore such a one serveth God not uprightly nor truly. _Answer_. This argument (said Luther) is Stoical, &c.