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@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“She is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God … It is certain that Mary is the Mother of the real and true God.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Vol. 11, Vol. 24, 107

“The blame rests with the government. Why do they not put adulterers to death? Then I would not need to give such advice. Between two evils one is always the lesser, in this case allowing the adulterer to remarry in a distant land in order to avoid fornication...”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

“But the Jews are so hardened that they listen to nothing; though overcome by testimonies they yield not an inch. It is a pernicious race, oppressing all men by their usury and rapine. If they give a prince or magistrate a thousand florins, they extort twenty thousand from the subjects in payment. We must ever keep on guard against them.”

Martin Luther book Table Talk

863
Table Talk (1569)

“On account of this personal union and communion of the natures, Mary, the most blessed virgin, did not conceive a mere, ordinary human being, but a human being who is truly the Son of the most high God, as the angel testifies. He demonstrated his divine majesty even in his mother's womb in that he was born of a virgin without violating her virginity. Therefore she is truly the mother of God and yet remained a virgin.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Martin Luther as quoted in Tappert, Theodore G. (1959). The Book of Concord: the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, p. 595

“When you see a person squirming in the clutches of the Law, say to him: “Brother, get things straight. You let the Law talk to your conscience. Make it talk to your flesh.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), Chapter 2, Verse 19

“Let all the 'free-will' in the world do all it can with all its strength; it will never give rise to a single instance of ability to avoid being hardened if God does not give the Spirit, or of meriting mercy if it is left to its own strength.”

Martin Luther book On the Bondage of the Will

Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 202

“His Mohammed, as has been said, commands that ruling is to be done by the sword, and in his Koran the sword is the commonest and noblest work. Thus the Turk is, in truth, nothing but a murderer or highwayman, as his deeds show before men’s eyes.”

Martin Luther book On War against the Turk

On War against the Turk (1529)

“Now, since on God's own testimony, men are 'flesh', they can savour of nothing but the flesh; therefore 'free-will can avail only to sin. And if, while the Spirit of God is calling and teaching among them, they go from bad to worse, what could they do when left to themselves, without the Spirit of God? Your [Erasmus] observation that Moses is speaking of the men of that age is not to the point at all. The same is true of all men, for all are 'flesh'; as Christ says, 'That which is born of the flesh is flesh' (John 3:6) How grave a defect this is, He Himself there teaches, when he says: 'Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (v. 5)…I call a man ungodly if he is without the Spirit of God; for Scripture says that the Spirit is given to justify the ungodly. As Christ distinguished the Spirit from the flesh, saying: "that which is born of the flesh is flesh', and adds that which is born of the flesh cannot enter the kingdom of God', it obviously follows that whatever is flesh is ungodly, under God's wrath, and a stranger to His kingdom. And if it is a stranger to God's kingdom and Spirit, it follows of necessity that it is under the kingdom and spirit of Satan. For there is no middle kingdom between the kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan, which are ever at war with each other.”

Martin Luther book On the Bondage of the Will

Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 241, 253

“I frankly confess that, for myself, even if it could be, I should not want "free-will" to be given me, nor anything to be left in my own hands to enable me to endeavour after salvation; not merely because in face of so many dangers, and adversities and assaults of devils, I could not stand my ground; but because even were there no dangers. I should still be forced to labour with no guarantee of success.¦ But now that God has taken my salvation out of the control of my own will, and put it under the control of His, and promised to save me, not according to my working or running, but according to His own grace and mercy, I have the comfortable certainty that He is faithful and will not lie to me, and that He is also great and powerful, so that no devils or opposition can break Him or pluck me from Him. Furthermore, I have the comfortable certainty that I please God, not by reason of the merit of my works, but by reason of His merciful favour promised to me; so that, if I work too little, or badly, He does not impute it to me, but with fatherly compassion pardons me and makes me better. This is the glorying of all the saints in their God.”

Martin Luther book On the Bondage of the Will

Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 313-314

“Adam was created righteous, acceptable, and without sin. He had no need from his labor in the garden to be made righteous and acceptable to God. Rather, the Lord gave Adam work in order to cultivate and protect the garden. This would have been the freest of all works because they were done simply to please God and not to obtain righteousness. … The works of the person who trusts God are to be understood in a similar manner. Through faith we are restored to paradise and created anew. We have no need of works in order to be righteous; however, in order to avoid idleness and so that the body might be cared for an disciplined, works are done freely to please God.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), pp. 73-74

“Since the law is good, the will, which is hostile to it, cannot be good.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Thesis 87
Disputation against Scholastic Theology (1517)

“so it is with human reason, which strives not against faith, when enlightened, but rather furthers and advances it.”

Martin Luther book Table Talk

On Justification CCXCIV
Table Talk (1569)

“But the other conception, namely the infusion of the soul, it is piously and suitably believed, was without any sin, so that while the soul was being infused, she would at the same time be cleansed from original sin and adorned with the gifts of God to receive the holy soul thus infused. And thus, in the very moment in which she began to live, she was without all sin.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Vol. 4, 694

“The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works (Translation by William J. Cole) 10, III, p. 313

“Faith, like light, should ever be simple and unbending; while love, like warmth, should beam forth on every side, and bend to every necessity of our brethren.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 220

“Dear rulers … I maintain that the civil authorities are under obligation to compel the people to send their children to school. … If the government can compel such citizens as are fit for military service to bear spear and rifle, to mount ramparts, and perform other martial duties in time of war, how much more has it a right to compel the people to send their children to school, because in this case we are warring with the devil, whose object it is secretly to exhaust our cities and principalities of their strong men.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

letter to the German rulers (1524), as quoted in The History of Compulsory Education in New England, John William Perrin, 1896

“Certainly it is true that Christians, so far as they themselves are concerned, are subject neither to law nor sword, and have need of neither. But take heed and first fill the world with real Christians before you attempt to rule it in a Christian and evangelical manner. This you will never accomplish; for the world and the masses are and always will be un-Christian, even if they are all baptized and Christian in name.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (1523), p. 91

“A theologian is born by living, nay dying and being damned, not by thinking, reading, or speculating.”

Martin Luther book Table Talk

352
Table Talk (1569)

“The First Sermon on the Day of the Visitation of Mary (Die erste Predigt am Tag der Heimsuchung Mariä).”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

1532 <br class="br">Denifle, Heinrich, Luther and Lutherdom http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029249567, vol.1, part 1, tr. from 2nd rev. ed. of German by Raymund Volz, Somerset, England: Torch Press, 1917, (Cornell University Library 2009), ISBN 1112168176 ISBN 9781112168178, p. 305. Denifle cites Luther’s Sämtliche Werke (Vols 4-6 in 1), Erlangen-Frankfurt edition, 1865, Heyder & Zimmer, vol. vi, p. 401 http://books.google.com/books?id=zTMoAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA3-PA401&dq=%22und+fluchen+wie+die+Landsknecht%22&lr=#v=onepage&q=%22und%20fluchen%20wie%20die%20Landsknecht%22&f=false

“Mother Mary, like us, was born in sin of sinful parents, but the Holy Spirit covered her, sanctified and purified her so that this child was born of flesh and blood, but not with sinful flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit permitted the Virgin Mary to remain a true, natural human being of flesh and blood, just as we. However, he warded off sin from her flesh and blood so that she became the mother of a pure child, not poisoned by sin as we are. For in that moment when she conceived, she was a holy mother filled with the Holy Spirit and her fruit is a holy pure fruit, at once God and truly man, in one person”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther (1905) edited by John Nicholas Lenker; republished as Sermons of Martin Luther (1996), p. 291