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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMartin Luther Collection: Luther, Martin - Table Talks: 33. Of Discord
TOPIC: Luther, Martin - Table Talks (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 33. Of Discord
Other Subjects in this Topic:
OF DISCORD
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DCCXXXI.
The 10th of February, 1546, John, Prince elector of Saxony said: A
controversy were easily settled, if the parties would exhibit some concord.
Luther said: We would willingly have concord, but no man seeks after the
medium of concord, which is charity. We seek riches, but no man seeks after
the right means how to be rich, namely, through God's blessing. We all
desire to be saved, but the world refuses the means how to be saved - the
Mediator Christ.
In former times potentates and princes referred their controversies to
faithful people, and did not so readily thrust them into the lawyer's hands.
When people desire to be reconciled and to come to an agreement, one party
must yield, and give way to the other. If God and mankind should be
reconciled and agreed, God must give over his right and justice, and must
lay aside his wrath; and we, mankind, must also lay down our own
righteousness, for we also would needs be gods in Paradise; we thought
ourselves wise as God, through the serpent's seduction; then Christ was fain
to make an agreement between us; he interposed in the cause, and would be a
mediator between God and man; this Mediator for his pains got the portion of
a peace-maker, namely, the cross; he that parts two fighters, commonly gets
the hardest knocks for himself. Even so Christ suffered and presented us
with his passion and death; he died for our sakes. and for the sake of our
justification he arose again. Thus the generation of mankind became
reconciled with God.
DCCXXXII.
When two goats meet upon a narrow bridge over deep water, how do they
behave? neither of them can turn back again, neither can pass the other,
because the bridge is too narrow; if they should thrust one another, they
might both fall into the water and be drowned; nature, then, has taught
them, that if the one lays himself down and permits the other to go over
him, both remain without hurt. Even so people should rather endure to be
trod upon, than to fall into debate and discord one with another.
DCCXXXIII.
A Christian, for the sake of his own person, neither curses nor
revenges himself; but faith curses and revenges itself. To understand this
rightly, we must distinguish God and man, the person and cause. In what
concerns God and his cause, we must have no patience, nor bless; as for
example, when the ungodly persecute the Gospel, this touches God and his
cause, and then we are not to bless or to wish good success, but rather to
curse the persecutors and their proceedings. Such is called faith's cursing,
which, rather than it would suffer God's Word to be suppressed and heresy
maintained, would have all creatures go to wreck; for through heresy we lose
God himself, Numbers xvi. But individuals personally ought not to revenge
themselves, but to suffer all things, and according to Christ's doctrine and
the nature of love, to do good to their enemies.