FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1525, AND NOW TRANSLATED BY THE REV. HENRY COLE, OF CLARE-HALL, CAMBRIDGE, AND LATE LECTURER OF WOOLWICH, KENT. It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. London: PRINTED BY T. BENSLEY, Crane Court, Fleet Street, FOR W. SIMPKIN AND R. MARSHALL, STATIONERS'-HALL-COURT; THE Translator has long had it in meditation, to present the British Church with an English version of a choice Selection from the Works of that great Reformer, MARTIN LUTHER: and in November last, he issued Proposals for such a publication. He considers it however necessary to state, that this Treatise on the BONDAGE OF THE WILL, formed no part of his design when those Proposals were sent forth. But receiving, subsequently, an application from several Friends to undertake the present Translation, he was induced not only to accede to their request, but also to acquiesce in the propriety of their suggestion, that this work should precede those mentioned in the Proposals. The unqualified encomium bestowed upon it by a Divine so eminent as the late Reverend AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY, who considered it a masterpiece of polemical composition, had justly impressed the minds of those friends with a correct idea of the value of the Treatise; and it was their earnest desire, |