the Holy Scriptures, are merely vain and human cogitations, spun out
of their own natural wit and understanding. They talk much of the
union of the will and understanding, but all is mere fantasy and
fondness. The right and true speculation (said Luther) is this,
Believe in Christ; do what thou oughtest to do in thy vocation, &c.
This is the only practice in divinity. Also, 'Mystica Theologia
Dionysii' is a mere fable, and a lie, like to Plato's fables. 'Omnia
sunt non ens, et omnia sunt ens'; all is something, and all is
nothing, and so he leaveth all hanging in frivolous and idle sort.

Still, however, 'du theure Mann Gottes, mein verehrter Luther'! reason,
will, understanding are words, to which real entities correspond; and we
may in a sound and good sense say that reason is the ray, the projected
disk or image, from the Sun of Righteousness, an echo from the Eternal
Word--'the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world';
and that when the will placeth itself in a right line with the reason,
there ariseth the spirit, through which the will of God floweth into and
actuates the will of man, so that it willeth the things of God, and the
understanding is enlivened, and thenceforward useth the materials
supplied to it by the senses symbolically; that is, with an insight into
the true substance thereof.


Ib. p. 9.

The Pope usurpeth and taketh to himself the power to expound and to
construe the Scriptures according to his pleasure. What he saith, must
stand and be spoken as from heaven. Therefore let us love and
preciously value the divine word, that thereby we may be able to
resist the Devil and his swarm.