Another Table Talk with Martin Luther

Welcome back for another installment of postings from Table Talk, a book of conversations by Martin Luther, where he commented on life, the church, and the Bible. The readings for this week are taken from the section entitled Of the Nature of the World. All quotes are from an early 20th century edition, translated by William Hazlitt, Esquire. The original was written in 1566.

CXXXVIII
The world will neither hold God for God, nor the devil for the devil. And if a man were left to himself, to do after his own kind and nature, he would willingly throw our Lord God out at the window; for the world regards God nothing at all, as the Psalm says: The wicked man saith in his heart, there is no God.

CXLIV
There are three sorts of people: the first, the common sort, who live secure without remorse of conscience, acknowledging not their corrupt manners and natures, insensible of God’s wrath against their sins, and careless thereof. The second, those who through the law are scared, feel God’s anger, and strive and wrestle with despair. The third, those that acknowledge their sins and God’s merited wrath, feel themselves conceived and born in sin, and therefore deserving of perdition, but, notwithstanding, attentively hearken to the gospel, and believe that God, out of grace for the sake of Jesus Christ, forgives sins, and so are justified before God, and afterwards show the fruits of their faith by all manner of good works.

CLIV
Abraham was held in no honor among the Canaanites, for all the wells he had dug the neighbors filled up, or took away by force, and said to him: “Wilt thou not suffer it? Then pack thee hence and be gone, for thou art with us a stranger and a new comer.” In like manner Isaac was despised. The faith possessed by the beloved patriarchs, I am not able sufficiently to admire. How firmly and constantly did they believe that God was gracious unto them, though they suffered such exceeding trouble and adversity.

CLXIV
A man that depends on the riches and honors of this world, forgetting God and the welfare of his soul, is like a little child that holds a fair apple in the hand, of agreeable exterior, promising goodness, but within ‘tis rotten and full of worms.

CLXV
Where great wealth is, there are also all manner of sins; for through wealth comes pride, through pride dissension, through dissension, wars, poverty; through poverty, great distress and misery. Therefore, they that are rich, must yield a strict and great account; for to whom much is given, of him much will be required.