The Bondage of the Will; Table Talk; Small & Large Catechisms

Two doctors in the law came to Luther at Wittenberg, whom he received and saluted in this manner: O ye canonists! I would well endure you, if ye meddled only with imperial, and not with popish laws. But ye maintain the pope and his canons. I would give one of my hands, on condition, all papists and canonists were compelled to keep the pop's laws and decrees; I would wish them no worse a devil.

The bishop of Mayence cannot boast that with a good conscience he has three bishoprics; but ye maintain it to be lawful and right. Ye doctors who meddle with popish laws are nothing, for the popish laws are nothing; therefore a doctor in the popish laws is nothing; he is a chimera, a monster, a fable, nothing. A doctor in the imperial laws is half lame, he has had a stroke on the one side; the pope's laws and decrees altogether stink of ambition, of pride, of self profit, covetousness, superstition, idolatry, tyranny, and such like blasphemies.

Ye that are studying under lawyers, follow not your preceptors in abuses or wrong cases, as if a man could not be a lawyer unless he practiced such evil. God has not given laws to make out of right wrong, and out of wrong right, as the unchristianlike lawyers do, who study law only for the sake of gain and profit.

Every lawyer is sorely vexed at me because I preach so harshly against the craft; but I say I, as a preacher, must reprove what is wrong and evil. If I reproved them, as Martin Luther, they need not regard me, but forasmuch as I do it as a servant of Christ, and speak by God's command, they ought to hearken unto me; for if they repent not, they shall everlastingly be damned; but I, when I have declared their sins, shall be excused. If I were not constrained to give an account for their souls, I would leave them unreproved.

All they that serve the pope are damned; for, next the devil, no worse creature is than the pope, with his lying human traditions, aimed directly against Christ. The greatest part of the lawyers, especially the canonists, are the pope's servants, and although they will not have the name, yet they prove it in deed. They would willingly rule the church, and trample upon her true and faithful servants; therefore are they damned.

A lawyer is wise according to human wisdom, a divine according to God's wisdom.

Ah! how bitter an enemy is the devil to our church and school here at Wittenberg, which in particular he opposes more than the rest, so that tyranny and heresy increase and get the upper hand by force, in that all the members of the church are against one another; yea, also we, which are a piece of the heart, vex and plague one another among ourselves. I am verily persuaded that many wicked wretches and spies are here, who watch over us with an evil eye, and are glad when discord and offences arise among us; therefore we ought diligently to watch and pray; it is high time—pray, pray. This school is a foundation and ground of pure religion, therefore she ought justly to be preserved and maintained with lectures and with stipends gainst the raging and swelling of Satan.

Whoso after my death shall condemn the authority of this school here at Wittenberg, if it remain as it is now, church and school, is a heretic and a perverted creature; for in this school God first revealed and purified his Word. This school and city, both in doctrine and manner of life, may justly be compared with all others; yet we are not altogether complete, but still faulty in our kind of living. The highest and chiefest divines in the whole empire hold and join with us—as Amsdorf, Brentius, and Rhegius—all desiring our friendship, and saluting us with loving and learned letters. A few years past, nothing was of any value but the pope, till the church mourned, cried, and sighed, and awakened our Lord God in heaven; as in the Psalm he says: "For the trouble of the needy and the groans of the poor, I will now arise."

Our nobility exhaust people with usury, insomuch that many poor people starve for want of food; the cry goes, I would willingly take a wife, if I knew how to maintain her, so that a forced celibacy will hence ensue. This is not good; such wicked courses will cause the poor to cry and sigh, will rouse up God and the heavenly host. Wherefore i say: Germany take heed. I often make an account, and as I come nearer and nearer to forty years, I think with myself: now comes an alteration, for St Paul preached not above forty years, nor St Augustine; always, after forty years pure preaching of God's Word, it has ceased, and great calamities have ensued thereupon.

Dialectica speaks simply, straightforward, and plainly, as when I say: Give me something to drink. But Rhetorica adorns the matter, saying: Give me of the acceptable juice of the cellar, which finely froths and makes people merry. Dialecta declares a thing distinctly and significantly, in brief words. Rhetorica counsels and advises, persuades and dissuades; she has her place and fountain head, whence a thing is taken; as, this is good, honest, profitable, easy, necessary, etc. These two arts St Paul briefly taught, where he says: "That he may be able by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convince the gainsayers." (Tit. 1.). Therefore, when I would teach a farmer concerning the tilling of his land, I define briefly and plainly, his kind of life; his housekeeping, fruits, profits, and all that belongs to the being of his life, Dialectice; but, if I would admonish him according to Rhetorica, then I counsel and advise him, and praise his kind of life, in this manner, as: that it is the most quiet, the richest, securest, and most delightful kind of life, etc. Again, if I intend to chide or find fault, then I must point out and blame his misconduct, evil impediments, failings, gross ignorance, and such like defects which are in the state of farmers. Philip Melancthon has illustrated and declared good arts; he teaches them in such sort, that the arts teach not him, but he the arts; I bring my arts into books, I take them not out of books. Dialectica is a profitable and necessary art, which justly ought to be studied and learned; it shows how we ought to speak orderly and uprightly, what we should acknowledge and judge to be right or wrong; `tis not only necessary in schools, but also in consistories, in courts of justice, and in churches; in churches most especially.

I always loved music; whoso has skill in this art, is of a good temperament, fitted for all things. We must teach music in schools; a schoolmaster ought to have skill in music, or I would not regard him; neither should we ordain young men as preachers, unless they have been well exercised in music.

Singing has nothing to do with the affairs of this world, it is not for the law; singers are merry and free from sorrows and cares.

Music is one of the best arts; the notes give life to the text; it expels melancholy, as we see in king Saul. Kings and princes ought to maintain music, for great potentates and rulers should protect good and liberal arts and laws; though private people have desire thereunto and love it, yet their ability is not adequate. We read in the Bible, that the good and godly kings maintained and paid singers. Music is the best solace for a sad and sorrowful mind; by it the heart is refreshed and settled again in peace.

Astronomy is the most ancient of all sciences, and has been the introducer of vast knowledge; it was familiarly known to the Hebrews, for they diligently noted the course of the heavens, as God said to Abraham: "Behold the heavens; canst thou number the stars?" etc. Heaven's motions are threefold; the first is, that the whole firmament moves swiftly around, every moment thousands of leagues, which, doubtless, is done by some angel. `Tis wonderful so great a vault should go about in so short a time. If the sun and stars were composed of iron, steel, silver, or gold, they must needs suddenly melt in so swift a course, for one star is greater than the whole earth, and yet they are innumerable. The second motion is, of the planets, which have their particular and proper motions. The third is, a quaking or a trembling motion, lately discovered, but uncertain. I like astronomy and mathematics, which rely upon demonstrations and sure proofs. As to astrology, `tis nothing.

Astronomy deals with the matter, and with what is general, not with manner of form. God himself will be alone the Master and Creator, Lord and Governor, though he has ordained the stars for signs. And so long as astronomy remains in her circle, whereunto God has ordained her, so is she a fair gift of God; but when she will step out of her bounds—that is, when she will prophecy and speak of future things, how it will go with one, or what fortune or misfortune another shall have, then she is not to be justified. Chiromancy we should utterly reject. In the stars is neither strength nor operation; they are but signs, and have, therefore, just cause to complain of the astrologers, who attribute unto them what they have not. The astrologers commonly ascribe that to the stars, which they ought to attribute to the planets, that announce only evil events, except that star which appeared to the wise men in the east, and which showed that the revelation of the Gospel was at the door.

In the year 1538, the Seigneur Von Minckwitz made a public oration in honor of astrology, wherein he sought to prove that the sentence in Jeremiah, chap. x: "Be not dismayed at the signs of heaven," applied not to astrology, but to the images of the Gentiles. Luther said hereupon: These passages may be quibbled with, but not overthrown. Jeremiah speaks as Moses did of all the signs of heaven, earth, and sea; the heathen were not so silly as to be afraid of the sun or moon, but they feared and adored prodigies and miraculous signs. Astrology is no art; it has no principle, no demonstration, whereupon we may take sure footing; `tis all haphazard work; Philip Melancthon, against his will, admits unto me, that though, as he says, the art is extant, there are none that understand it rightly. They set forth, in their almanacs, that we shall have no snow in summer time, nor thunder in winter; and this the country clowns know as well as the astrologers. Philip Melancthon says: That such people as are born in ascendant Libra, in the ascension of Liber towards the south, are unfortunate people. Whereupon I said: The astrologers are silly creatures, to dream that their crosses and mishaps proceed not from God, but from the stars; `tis hence, they are not patient in their troubles and adversities. Astrology is uncertain; and as the predicamenta are feigned words in Dialectica, even so astronomy has feigned astrology; as the ancient and true divines knew nothing of the fantasies and divinity of the school teachers, so the ancient astronomers knew nothing of astrology. The nativities of Cicero and of others were shown me. I said: I hold nothing thereof, nor attribute anything unto them. I would gladly have the astrologers answer me this: Esau and Jacob were born together, of one father and one mother, at one time, and under equal planets, yet they were wholly of contrary natures, kinds, and minds. What is done by God, ought not to be ascribed to the stars. The upright and true Christian religion opposes and confutes all such fables. The way of casting nativities is like the proceedings in popedom, whose outward ceremonies and pompous ordinances are pleasing to human wit and wisdom, as the consecrated water, torches, organs, cymbals, singing, ringing, but withal there's no certain knowledge. An astrologer, or horoscope monger, is like one that sells dice, and bawls: Behold, here I have dice that always come up twelve. If once or twice their conjectures tell, they cannot sufficiently extol the art; but as to the infinite cases where they fail, they are altogether silent. Astronomy, on the contrary, I like; it pleases me by reason of her manifold benefits.

General prophecies and declarations, which declare generally what in future shall happen accord not upon individuals and particular things.

When at one time many are slain together in a battle, no man can affirm they were all born under one planet, yet they die altogether in one hour, yea, in one moment.

God has appointed a certain and sure end for all things, otherwise Babylon might have said: I will remain and continue; and Rome: To me is the government and rule given without ceasing. To Alexander and others were given empires and kingdoms, yet astrology taught not that such great kingdoms were to be raised, nor how long they were to last.

Astrology is framed by the devil, to the end people may be scared from entering into the state of matrimony, and from every divine and human office and calling; for the star-peepers presage nothing that is good out of the planets; they affright people's consciences, in regard of misfortunes to come, which all stand in God's hand, and through such mischievous and unprofitable cogitations vex and torment the whole life.

Great wrong is done to God's creatures by the star-expounders. God has created and placed the stars in the firmament, to the end they might give light to the kingdoms of the earth, make people glad and joyful in the Lord, and be good signs of years and seasons. But the star-peepers feign that those creatures, of God created, darken and trouble the earth, and are hurtful; whereas all creatures of God are good, and by God created only for good, though mankind makes them evil, by abusing them. Eclipses, indeed, are monsters, and like to strange and untimely births. Lastly, to believe in the stars, or to trust thereon, or to be affrighted thereat, is idolatry, and against the first commandment.