Held 1517.
Matth. 11, 25-30.
At that time Jesus answered and said: I praise you, Father and Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to babes. Yes, Father, for it has been well pleasing in your sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father. And no one knows the Son but the Father; and no one knows the Father but the Son, and to whom the Son wills to reveal it. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Man hides what is his, so that he denies it and keeps it hidden: God hides what is his, that he may reveal it. For he hideth it from the wise and great, that they might be humbled and unwise, and so reveal it to babes: for this is acceptable in his sight, and the best will, which is just, right, and holy. And what will is better than that which by its concealment does nothing but remove the obstacles to revelation, that is, arrogance? Two questions are raised here. First, it is asked: What is the understanding of the wise and prudent, to whom such things are kept hidden? second: What is that which is kept hidden from them?
(2) As for the first question, it is answered from time to time that wise and prudent men are those who imagine themselves to be such, when in fact they are not. This gloss is true, but it is darker than the text itself. Many say that the wise and prudent siud those who are such, and yet do not believe that they are such; indeed, they abhor such as an abomination. This gloss reads, then, as if some are wise, but others only seem wise; which ver-
stand is dangerous, close to pride, and peculiar to those who are such wise.
3 Therefore, Christians should be told, "Wise" are those who are wise in all things, especially in the wisdom of God and in the Holy Scriptures. For all such are and think themselves wise. Furthermore, those whom I will truly call wise are those who do not presume to be wise nor to have wisdom, but rather presume to be fools and to be in need of wisdom and prudence, seeing without all flattery of heart that they are empty and know nothing at all. These, I say, who are thus truly unwise, yet thirst after wisdom, are truly wise. All the rest, they may think themselves wise, as there are those who are in a rude, gross ignorance; or they may have wisdom, as there are the subtle hypocrites: these are all wise, because they are not unwise, they are not empty, they do not thirst after wisdom, they are not babes. Therefore the apostle, as an excellent teacher, does not say, "Whoever wants to be wise among you should think himself a fool, or consider himself a fool;" but he says, "Let him be a fool, so that he may be wise. For this is a true saying: The fool is wise and the wise man is a fool, namely: He who is a fool in his own wisdom is wise in a strange one, namely, in the wisdom of God, who imputes such to him. For
Whoever recognizes himself as a true fool before God, this humility is counted as the greatest wisdom. Those who are truly wise, that is, unwise, always say: Lord, judge my walk and my steps before you; but whoever prays in this way confesses himself to be blind and unwise, as this is clear in itself. But he does not think himself unwise in this way, as if he were nevertheless wise. But the wise, that is, the foolish, say, "Who will show us what is good?" We are what we are, we follow the guidance or good intention and sound reason, as Cicero boasts in his book De Senectute; that they are wise precisely in this, that they follow reason as the best guide. Now this sound reason, this leader, this prudence of nature, which is now heard and praised in all cathedrals and pulpits, is that wisdom and prudence to which the father hides what is his, so that he may make it a fool and accuse it, and thus require it to seek grace, that it may be a leader. Furthermore, the wise and the prudent can be distinguished in this way, that by the "wise" is understood one who is a teacher of young men and others, and is powerful to teach; but a "prudent" is one who is skilled to grasp what is put before him. For both are fools with God.
The answer to the other question is that what is hidden there is Christ himself and God the Father. But he immediately solves the question himself by saying: "All things have been given to me by my Father. And no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and to whom the Son wills to reveal it." Is therefore the knowledge of God and of Christ, of the Father and of the Son, that which is hidden, against which the wise and the saints most repudiate; just as John says (Cap. 15, 21.): "And this they will do to you" (namely, that "when they kill you, they mean to do God a service" and to prove obedience), "because they know neither the Father nor me." For this is precisely why they think they are proving obedience to God, because they are wise and prudent, but not minors; but for this reason they consider themselves wise, because
they do not recognize that which is hidden, the Father and the Son.
What then is the knowledge of God taught by Christ? So everything is snatched away from us and nothing is left? Where then is wisdom? Where is righteousness? Where is truth? Where is virtue? Not in us, but in Christ, apart from us, in God. Therefore, since all things are given to Christ, we have become minors, fools, sinners, liars, weak and vain. So no one knows the Father but the Son, and no one knows the Son but the Father, because everything belongs to the Father alone and has been given to the Son alone. And so we have been made completely empty of all knowledge, and by this very fact we have been made incompetent and clever, so that the Father reveals His own to us, and the Son also reveals His own to us; that is, it is the same if the Father reveals both to us as the Son, it is One Revelation, One Revealer. The Father transfigures and glorifies the Son, the Son transfigures and glorifies the Father; as it is said in John (Cap. 17, 1.). Learn therefore where wisdom, virtue and understanding are, Baruch 3, 37: "Our God alone has invented them." So it is not to be sought in and among us, but in God. "He gave it to Jacob his son and to Israel his chosen one." And John 12:32 says: "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself." So he has left nothing for us? Yes, it is so. Where are the wise men?
Know ye therefore that our righteousness, strength, virtue, and wisdom, is Christ himself, made unto us of God: in whom God the Father hath put all his wisdom, and strength, and virtue, and righteousness, that it might be ours. That is, "to know the Son." Then know that the Father, according to His mercy, imputes to us the righteousness of His Son, that is, His own righteousness; for there is given to us one righteousness of the Father and of the Son, one life, one power. This is called "knowing the Father of Christ." But this is so hidden from the wise, that when they hear it, they straightway chatter: Let us not do good; let us do evil, to
that good may come. If we are justified by an alien righteousness, and by God's mercy alone, let us be idle, since our works are nothing; neither is our wisdom anything. Thus speak those who are too wise and righteous; who, if they were only minors, that they might accept the Father and Son as He reveals Himself, would easily be able to answer this question. Although those are not idle, to whom Christ is revealed as wisdom, and who do not live themselves, but in whom Christ lives. We must not fear that Christ is idle; indeed, he is the busiest and most active, and this happens most easily and sweetly when those in their own wisdom strive in vain, sweat and trouble themselves with their peculiar mysteries. For they strive to attain to the tranquility of conscience by their own attempts, efforts and ways, and do not rest until they realize and see that they have redeemed their sin by satisfaction, and have accomplished their purpose, which is impossible and by which we build on the sand.
Therefore, no matter how much they work, labor, labor, and speculate, they do nothing but increase the restlessness of the soul, which they seek to escape by this very means. The restlessness of the soul cannot be escaped in any other way except by knowing the Father and Christ, that is, the grace and mercy of God freely given to us in Christ, and the merit of Christ imputed to us. To these he now says, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"; ye shall not give yourselves rest, that is, give you rest, but I will do this. Why do you stay with yourselves? Go out from yourselves, and come to me: despair of yourselves, and hope in me. As Abraham went forth from his own country, from his father's house, and from his friendship. For our father's house is ourselves; we ourselves are the world: so must we go out from ourselves, when we are weary and burdened. In the Greek it is far more convenient, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden." For it would not be so hard,
but less so, if we were burdened and so labored; so that the burden would be the labor and the cause of our labor: but so also is the labor the burden, that is, we labor that we may find rest, and this very labor weighs us down and troubles us more; for sin is increased and made greater by our righteousness and works; the conscience is not thereby relieved nor made secure, but rather troubled; as it is said Eccles. 10:15, "The work of fools is made sour unto them," etc.; and the same v. 9, "He that rolleth away stones shall have trouble with it; and he that cleaveth wood shall be hurt thereby." These are the services and works of the saints of works. For it is commonly said of hard labor, I would rather carry stones and cut wood; and yet what do these two works accomplish but that they serve others and not themselves?
8 Let us therefore hear from the rest of souls, "Take my yoke upon you." He does not say, Do this or that; but: Come unto me, forsake me, take up your cross, and follow me: for whosoever shall not take up his cross, and follow me, is not worthy of me." (Matth. 10, 38.) For coming to Christ and going out from Himself is a great cross, from which no one has greater abhorrence than those who seek to blot out sins with their works. Since all these seek not to escape sins, but the punishments of sins (for they are servants, they do not take away sins, but only the punishments of sins), they seek to extinguish the infernal fire and escape the punishment of judgment through much atonement and atonement. But because sin remains constant, so does the punishment of the conscience. For they seek their own. Therefore, the wicked have no peace. If the wicked would leave themselves and hate their sin, they would have no punishment and should not be afraid, because when the guilt is gone, the punishment stops by itself. But they do not want to leave themselves and are afraid of this light yoke of Christ: therefore they labor under their burden, and fear where there is nothing to fear, and pull on sin as on a loaded chariot.
(9) The extravagance of indulgences makes servile righteousness even more perfect, since nothing is accomplished by them except that the people learn to fear the punishment of sins, but not to fear sin itself, to flee from it, and to bear an abhorrence of it. Therefore, the fruit of indulgences is felt little, but a great certainty and impudence to sin; so much so that where they are not afraid of the punishment of sins, no one would ask for indulgences, even if he could have them for free; rather, the people should be exhorted to love the punishment and to take up the cross. And would God have me lie if I said that the indulgences or indulgences are perhaps rightly so called because indulgere means as much as permittere, to permit, and indulgentia means as much as a permission to sin with impunity, and a freedom to
from the cross of Christ. Or if indulgences should take place, that they should be given only to those who are weak in faith, so that those who do not strive through the cross to attain to meekness and humility would not be offended, as the Lord says here. For he says that the rest of the soul is not found through indulgences, but through meekness and humility. But meekness is not found except under punishment and in the cross, from which indulgences make free, which they teach to abhor, and make that we never become meek and humble, that is, that we never obtain indulgences nor come to Christ. O what danger we live in at our time! O snoring priests! O more than Egyptian darkness! How safe we are in all our greatest misfortunes!