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In 1518 Erasmus wrote a treatise called Familiar Colloquies, which again attacked the corruptions of the Church and the monasteries. Just the year before, Martin Luther had boldly nailed hi ninety-five theses on the church door at Wittenberg, protesting against indulgence, which had become a scandal in many countries. For a time it seemed a though Erasmus and Luther would combine to bring about the necessary reform, but their ideas on how to achieve them were radically different. It was not long before Luther began to condemn Erasmus because the latter was a moderate and wanted to work by peaceful means from within the Church. It might be said that Erasmus thought and wrote, while Luther acted. The rift finally came in 1524 when Erasmus wrote an essay entitled On the Freedom of the Will. Luther rejected the idea that man had free will, but Erasmus reasoned that this would make God unjust, since it would mean that man would not be able to act in a way that result in his salvation. The relation of Erasmus to the Reformation have been summed up as follow: He was a reformer until the Reformation became a fearful reality; a jester at the bulwarks of the papacy until they began to give way; a propagator of the Scriptures until men betook themselve to the study and the application of them; depreciating the mere outward forms of religion until they had come to be estimated at their real value; in short, a learned, ingenious, benevolent, amiable, timid, irresolute man, who, bearing the responsibility, resigned to others the glory of rescuing the human mind from the bondage of a thousand year. The distance between his career and that of Luther was therefore continually enlarging, until they at length moved in opposite direction, and met each other with mutual animosity.Edinburgh Review,lxviii,302. The reformers could not agree among themselve a to doctrine and practice, so the changes made in the sixteenth century failed to eradicate some of the basic tradition that had hidden the truth of God Word over the centuries. But the advances made in giving the Bible to the common people have continued from that time to the present day. From these struggles, in which Erasmus played a part, have emerged reliable and accurate Bible translation. Thus, today the plowboy can pick up the Bible, or at least part of it, in just about any language and can delight in learning about Gods great purpose for mankind. The Scriptures warmly encourage us to do just that. As it say in Psalm 1:2, 3 regarding the righteou man: His delight is in the law of Jehovah, and in hi law he reads in an undertone day and night. And he will certainly become like a tree planted by streams of water, that give its own fruit in it season and the foliage of which does not wither, and everything he does will succeed. May we never let a day go by without finding delight in Gods Word.
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