"The old man is vanity of vanities—he is wholly vanity, and renders all other creatures vain, how good soever they be.
"The old man is called the flesh, not only because he is led by sensual lusts, but also because, even though he were chaste, prudent, and just, he is not born anew of God by the Spirit.
"A man who is without the grace of God cannot observe the commands of God, nor prepare himself, in whole or in part, to receive grace, but necessarily remains under sin.
"The will of man without grace is not free, but enslaved, and that voluntarily.
"Jesus Christ, our strength and our righteousness, who trieth the hearts and reins, is alone the Searcher and Judge of our merits.
"Since everything is possible through Christ to him who believeth, it is superstitious to seek other aid, whether in the will of man or in the saints."[262]
This disputation made a great noise, and has been considered as the commencement of the Reformation.
The moment approached when this reformation was to burst forth. God was hastening to prepare the instrument which he meant to employ. The elector having built a new church at Wittemberg, to which he gave the name of "All-Saints," sent Staupitz into the Netherlands to collect the relics with which he was desirous to enrich it. The vicar-general ordered Luther to take his place during his absence, and in particular to pay a visit to forty monasteries in Misnia and Thuringia.
Luther repaired first to Grimma, and thence to Dresden, everywhere labouring to establish the truths which he had ascertained, and to enlighten the members of his own order. "Don't attach yourself to Aristotle, or to other teachers of a deceitful philosophy," said he to the monks, "but diligently read the word of God. Seek not your salvation in your own strength, and your own good works, but in the merits of Christ, and in Divine grace."[263]
An Augustin monk of Dresden had run off from his convent, and was living at Mayence, where the prior of the Augustins had received him. Luther wrote to the prior[264] to demand restitution of the lost sheep, and added these words, which are full of truth and charity, "I know that offences must come. It is no wonder that man falls; but it is a wonder he rises again, and stands erect. Peter fell, in order that he might know that he was a man; and we still see the cedar of Lebanon fall. Angels even (a thing which surpasses our comprehension) fell in heaven, and Adam fell in paradise. Why then be astonished when a reed is shaken by the wind, and the smoking flax is quenched?" From Dresden, Luther proceeded to Erfurt, to do the duties of vicar-general in the very convent where, eleven years before, he had wound up the clock, opened the door, and swept the Church. He appointed his friend, bachelor John Lange, a learned and pious, but austere man, prior of the convent, exhorting him to affability and patience. Shortly after he wrote him, "Show a spirit of meekness towards the prior of Nuremberg. This is fitting, inasmuch as the prior has put on a sour and bitter spirit. Bitter is not expelled by bitter, that is to say, devil by devil; but sweet expels bitter, that is to say, the finger of God casts out demons."[265]