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The Bondage of the Will QUOTES

The Bondage of the Will QUOTES

1 " If then, Moses so distinctly announces that there is in us not only a faculty, but also a facility for keeping all commandments, why are we sweating so much? ... What need is there now of Christ or of Spirit? We have found a passage that asserts freedom of choice, but also distinctly teaches that the keeping of the commandments is easy. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

2 " May the Lord, whose cause this is, enlighten you and make you a vessel to honour and glory. Amen. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

3 " That is what Reason can neither grasp nor endure, and what has offended all these men of outstanding talent who have been so received for so many centuries. Here they demand that God should act according to human justice, and do what seems right to them or else cease to be God. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

4 " I will say something still easier. Take a single flea or louse-since you tempt and mock our God with this talk about curing a lame horse-and if, after combining all the powers and concentrating all the efforts both of your good and all your supporters, you succeed in killing it in the name of free choice, you shall be victorious, your case shall be established, and we too will come at once and worship that god of yours, that wonderful killer of the louse. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

5 " Indeed, to spur your Baal to action, I will taunt and challenge you ... to create as much as a single frog in the name and by the power of free choice, though the heathen and ungodly magicians in Egypt were able to create many.... I will not set you the heavy task of creating lice, which they could not produce either "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

6 " Nothing is more familiar or characteristic among Christians than assertion. Take away assertions, and you take away Christianity. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

7 " The Holy Spirit is no sceptic, and the things He has written in our hearts are not doubts or opinions, but assertions - surer and more certain than sense and life itself. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

8 " So, you see, what kept me from rushing in with an answer to you was not the difficulty of so doing, nor pressure of other work, nor the grandeur of your eloquence, nor fear of you, but simply disgust, disinclination, and distaste--which, if I may say so, express my judgment of your Diatribe. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

9 " That book of [Melancthon], to my mind, deserves not merely to live as long as books are read, but to take its place in the Church canon; whereas your book, by comparison, struck me as so worthless and poor that my heart went out to you for having defiled your lovely, brilliant flow of language with such vile stuff. I thought it outrageous to convey material of so low a quality in the trappings of such rare eloquence; it is like using gold or silver dishes to carry garden rubbish or dung. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

10 " For the kingdom is not being prepared, but has been prepared, while the sons of the Kingdom are being prepared, not preparing the Kingdom; that is to say, the Kingdom merits the sons, not the songs the Kingdom. So all hell merits and prepares its children rather than they it. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

11 " Are we not to call Christ ours because we have not made him but only received him? Again, if we are the makers of things that are called ours, then we must have made our eyes, we must have made our hands, we must have made our feet, unless eyes, hands and feet are not to be called ours. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

12 " En god teolog lär som följer. Folket måste tyglas med svärdets yttre makt, då det handlar illa, såsom Paulus lär i Rom. 13. Människors samveten får emellertid inte snärjas med falska lagar, så att de plågas med synder, där Gud inte velat, att tal skall vara om synd. Ty samvetena bindes endast av Guds bud. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

13 " But to be brief. The clearness of the Scripture is twofold; even as the
obscurity is twofold also. The one is external, placed in the ministry of
the word; the other internal, placed in the understanding of the heart. If
you speak of the internal clearness, no man sees one iota in the
Scriptures, but he that hath the Spirit of God. All have a darkened heart;
so that, even if they know how to speak of, and set forth, all things in
the Scripture, yet, they cannot feel them nor know them: nor do they
believe that they are the creatures of God, nor any thing else: according
to that of Psalm xiv, 1. "The fool hath said in his heart, God is nothing."
For the Spirit is required to understand the whole of the Scripture and
every part of it. If you speak of the external clearness, nothing whatever
is left obscure or ambiguous; but all things that are in the Scriptures, are
by the Word brought forth into the clearest light, and proclaimed to the
whole world. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

14 " many pass for saints on earth whose souls are in hell. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

15 " The truth of the matter is rather as Christ says, "He who is not with me is against me." ... He does not say "He who is not with me is not against me either, but merely neutral. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

16 " Here again you confuse and mix everything up in your usual way. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

17 " from you, my dear Erasmus, let me obtain this request, that just as I bear with your ignorance in these matters, so you in turn will bear with my lack of eloquence. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

18 " Why do you rant and brag with such a spate of words, as if you wanted to overwhelm me with a sort of tempest and deluge of oratory-which nevertheless falls with the greater force on your own head, while my ark rides aloft in safety? "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

19 " I frankly confess that even if it were possible I should not wish to have free choice given to me, or to have anything left in my own hands by which I might strive for salvation. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will

20 " I owe you a small thanks, for you have made me far more sure of my own position by letting me see the case for free choice put forward with all the energy of so distinguished and powerful a mind, but with no other effect than to make things worse than before. "

― Martin Luther , The Bondage of the Will