And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges.
Ver. 27. By whom do your children, &c.] That is, your countrymen. Not the disciples (as Augustine, Civ. Dei, and other ancients would have it), but the Jewish exorcists, of whom see Mark 9:38; Acts 19:13. As if our Saviour should have said, Unless that be a blemish in me that you hold to be a beauty in others, why should you condemn me for a conjurer? Why doth your malice thus wilfully cross your consciences? Certain it is, saith Erasmus, that the selfsame things are condemned as heretical in Luther's books, that in Augustine and Bernard's works are read and regarded as pious and orthodox sentences. a So these passages were gathered as heresies out of Tyndale's works. He is not a sinner in the sight of God that would be no sinner. He that would be delivered, hath his heart loose already. It is impossible that the word of the cross should be without affliction and persecution. The gospel is written for all persons and estates, prince, duke, pope, emperor. We cannot be without motions of evil desires, but we must mortify them in resisting them. God made us his children and heirs while we were his enemies, and before we knew him. Men should see that their children come to church to hear the sermon, &c. Were not these perilous heresies? b Saith not the Scripture the same in various places? Is not this to have the glorious faith of our Lord Jesus Christ in respect of persons? James 2:1. So the greatest errors that Henry Voes and John Esch, martyrs, were accused of, were, that men ought to trust only in God; forsomuch as men are liars, and deceitful in all their words and deeds; and therefore there ought no trust or affiance to be put in them.
a Compertum est damnata ut haeretica in libris Lutheri, &c. Eras. Epist. ad Cardinal. Moguntin.
b Novum crimen C. Caesar, et antehoc tempus inauditum. Cic. pro Ligar.