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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMartin Luther Collection: Luther, Martin - Table Talks: 47. Of Vocation and Calling
TOPIC: Luther, Martin - Table Talks (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 47. Of Vocation and Calling
Other Subjects in this Topic:
OF VOCATION AND CALLING
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DCCCXLVII.
When they who have the office of teaching, joy not therein, that is, have
not regard to him that called and sent them; it is, for them, an irksome
work. Truly, I would not take the wealth of the whole world, now to begin
the work gainst the pope, which thus far I have wrought, by reason of the
exceeding heavy care and anguish wherewith I have been burthened. Yet, when
I look upon him that called me thereunto, I would not for the world's
wealth, but that I had begun it.
It is much to be lamented, that no man is content and satisfied with
that which God gives him in his vocation and calling. Other men's conditions
please us more than our own; as the heathen said: - "Fertilior seges est
alienis semper in agris, Vicinumque pecus grandius uber habet."
And another heathen: - Optat ephippia bos piger, optat arare caballus."
The more we have the more we want. To serve God is for every one to remain
in his vocation and calling, be it ever so mean and simple.
DCCCXLVIII.
It is said, occasion has a forelock, but is bald behind. Our Lord has
taught this by the course of nature. A farmer must sow his barley and oats
about Easter; if he defer it to Michaelmas, it were too late. When apples
are ripe they must be plucked from the tree, or they are spoiled.
Procrastination is as bad as overhastiness. There is my servant Wolf: when
four or five birds fall upon the bird net, he will not draw it, but says: O,
I will stay until more come, then they all fly away, and he gets none.
Occasion is a great matter. Terence says well: I came intime, which is the
chief thing of all. Julius Caesar understood occasion; Pompey and Hannibal
did not. Boys at school understand it not, therefore they must have fathers
and masters, with the rod to hold them thereto, that they neglect not time,
and lose it. Many a young fellow has a school stipend for six or seven
years, during which he ought diligently to study; he has his tutors, and
other means, but he thinks: O, I have time enough yet. But I say: No,
fellow. What little Jack learns not, great John learns not. Occasion salutes
thee, and reaches out her forelock to thee, saying: "Here I am, take hold of
me;" thou thinkest she will come again. Then says she: Well, seeing thou
wilt not take hold of my top, take hold of my tail; and therewith flings
away.
Bonaventura was but a poor sophist, yet he could say: He that neglects
occasion is of it neglected, and `tis a saying with us: Take hold of time,
while `tis time, and now, while `tis now. Our emperor Charles understood not
occasion, when he took the French king prisoner before Pavia, in 1525; nor
afterwards, when he got into his hands pope Clement, and had taken Rome in
1527; nor in 1529, when he almost got hold of the great Turk before Vienna.
`Twas monstrous negligence for a monarch to have in his hands his three
great enemies, and yet let them go.
DCCCXLIX.
Germany would be much richer than she is, if such store of velvets and
silks were not worn, nor so much spice used, or so much beer drunk. But
young fellows without their liquor have no mirth at all; gaming makes not
merry, nor lasciviousness, so they apply themselves to drinking. At the
princely jollification lately held at Torgau, each man drank, at one
draught, a whole bottle of wine; this they called a good drink. Tacitus
wrote, that by the ancient Germans it was held no shame at all to drink and
swill four and twenty hours together. A gentleman of the court asked: How
long ago it was since Tacitus wrote this? He was answered, about fifteen
hundred years. Whereupon the gentleman said: Forasmuch as drunkenness has
been so ancient a custom, and of such a long descent, let us not abolish it.
THE END
[1] The cause of the captain's commitment was his pressing the Lord
Treasurer for arrears of pay.
[2] The identity of antichrist with the pope had already been asserted by
John Huss, in his De Anatomia Antichristi.