grace. For what purpose are all the invitations of the gospel, if man cannot possibly heed them?
"Only a foolish king could place a goal before his subjects and then say, 'Now run that you may get there,' when he already knows beforehand that they are bound in iron and that they cannot run. It were certainly a cunning God, who invites all men to the supper, and really offers his mercy to every one, if he after all did not wish the invited to come. It were a false God who should say in words, ' Come here,' and yet in secret in his heart should think, 'Sit yonder.' It would be an unfaithful God who should publicly offer grace to man, and should clothe him in new raiment, yet in secret take it away from him and prepare hell for him. Cursed be he who maintains that God has commanded us impossible things, for everything that is impossible to our strength is possible by the word which God has sent.... As the human eye is capable of seeing light, and yet cannot see it unless the light streams into the eye, likewise man has the power to see the light of faith through the word of God, yet he cannot see this light unless by the heavenly illumination it is borne into his soul.... Whoever denies the freedom of the human will, denies and rejects more than half of the Holy Scriptures."
From the passages already quoted, it will be seen that Hübmaier's theory regarding original sin is very nearly, if not exactly, that now called the realistic. When Adam fell the race fell, since the
