617. A person who believes that regeneration is possible without any free will in spiritual matters, and so without any co-operation, becomes as regards all the church's truths as cold as a rock; and if he is hot, he is like a blazing log on a fire, which burns because of the combustible material it contains, because of his lusts. To employ a comparison, he becomes like a palace sinking into the ground up to its roof and being flooded with muddy water; after this he lives on the bare roof, and there builds himself a shelter of reeds from the marshes. Finally the roof too sinks below the surface and he is drowned.
[2] He is also like a ship laden with precious goods of every kind taken from the treasury of the Word. But these are gnawed by mice and grubs, or thrown overboard by the sailors, so that the merchants are cheated out of their wares. Those who are learned or rich in the mysteries of that faith are like salesmen in shops selling statues of idols, fruit and flowers made of wax, sea-shells, vipers in bottles and such like. Those who, because of the lack of any spiritual power applied and given by the Lord, are unwilling to look up, are in fact like animals which keep their heads down to look, as they seek their food in the woods. If they come into gardens, they are like caterpillars which eat the leaves of trees: and if they catch sight of fruits, and more so if they handle them, they fill them with maggots. Finally they become like scaly snakes, for their fallacies rustle and glitter like the scales of snakes. And so one might continue with comparisons.
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