Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  THE FOURTEEN OF CONSOLATION

  PREFATORY NOTE1

  THIS BOOK WAS written, early in my career, for that most excellent prince, Frederick, Duke of Saxony, when he was stricken with a dangerous illness; but many desired that it be printed. After passing through various editions it has now become so sadly corrupted and mutilated that many passages are missing, whose original form I myself have clean forgot. However, I have restored the sense of them, as well as I was able, taking care to set down only such views as I held when the work was first written. I did not care to revise them now, as I might well do. For it is my purpose in this book to put forth a public record of my progress,2 and also to show a kindness to the “Contradictionists,” 3 that they may have whereon to exercise their malice. For me it is enough if I please my Lord Christ and His saints; that I am hated of the devil and his scales, 4 I rejoice with all my heart, and give thanks to God.

  PART I

  DEDICATORY EPISTLE5

  To the Most Illustrious Prince and Lord, Frederick, Duke of

  Saxony, Arch-Marshal and Elector Of the Holy Roman Empire,

  Landgrave of THuringia, Margrave of Meissen, his most gracious

  Lord.

  Our Lord and Saviour Jesus hath left us a commandment, which concerns all Christians alike, — that we should render the duties of humanity, or (as the Scriptures call them) the works of mercy, [Luke 6:36] to such as are afflicted and under calamity; [Matt. 25:34 ff.] that we should visit the sick, endeavor to set free the prisoners, and perform other like acts of kindness to our neighbor, whereby the evils of this present time may in some measure be lightened. And of this command our Lord Jesus Christ hath Himself given us the brightest example, in that, out of infinite love to the race of men. He descended out of the bosom of the Father into our misery and prison-cell, that is, our flesh and life so full of ills, and took upon Him the penalty of our sins, in order that we might be saved; as He saith in Isaiah xliii, “Thou hast made Me to serve with thy sins, and wearied Me with thine iniquities.” [Isa. 43:24]

  Whoever is not moved by so bright an example, and driven by the authority of the divine command, to show forth such works of mercy, he will deservedly hear, in the last judgment, the voice of the angry Judge saying: “Depart from me, thou cursed, into everlasting fire! For I was sick, and thou didst not visit Me; but, basely ungrateful for the many blessings I bestowed on thee and on all the world, thou wouldest not so much as lift a finger to succor thy brethren, nay Me, Christ, thy God and Saviour, in thy brethren.” [Matt. 25:41]

  Since, then, most noble Prince, I perceive that your Lordship has been smitten with a dangerous malady, and that Christ has thus fallen sick in you, I have counted it my duty to visit your Lordship with a little writing of mine. For I cannot pretend to be deaf to the voice of Christ crying to me out of your Lordship’s flesh and blood, “Behold, here am I sick.” For such ills as sickness and the like are endured, not by us Christians, but by Christ Himself, our Lord and Saviour, in Whom we live. Even as He plainly testifies in the Gospel, “Whatsoever ye have done unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” [Matt. 25:40] And while we should visit and console all who are afflicted with sickness, yet we owe this duty specially to those who are of the household of faith. For Paul clearly distinguishes between strangers and those of the household, or those who are bound to us by intimate ties, Galatians vi. [Gal. 6:10]

  But I have yet other reasons for performing this my duty. For I consider that, as one of your Lordship’s subjects, I must needs share in your Lordship’s illness, together with the remainder of your many subjects, and suffer with you as a member with the Head, on which all our fortunes, our safety, and our happiness depend. For we recognize in your Lordship another Naaman [2 Kings, 5:1], by whom God is now giving deliverance to Germany, as in times past He gave deliverance to Syria. Wherefore the whole Roman Empire turns its eyes to your Lordship alone, and venerates and receives you as the Father of the Fatherland, and the bright ornament and protector of the whole Empire, but of the German nation in particular.6

  Nor are we bound only to console your Lordship as much as in us lies, and to make your present sorrow our own, but much more to pray God for your health and safety; which I trust your Lordship’s subjects are doing with all diligence and devotion. But as for me, whom your Lordship’s many and signal benefactions have made your debtor above all others, I count it my duty to express my gratitude by rendering you some special service. But now, by reason of my poverty both of mind and fortune, it is not possible for me to offer anything of value; therefore I gladly welcomed the suggestion of Doctor George Spalatin, one of your Lordship’s court chaplains, that I should prepare a kind of spiritual consolation and present it to your Lordship, to whom, he said, it would be most acceptable. Being unwilling to reject this friendly counsel, I have put together the following fourteen chapters, after the fashion of an altar tablet, and have called them, “The Fourteen.” 7 They are to take the place of the fourteen saints whom our superstition has invented and called, “The Defenders against all evil.” 8 But this is a tablet not of silver, but of a spiritual sort; nor is it intended to adorn the walls of a church, but to uplift and strengthen a pious heart. I trust it will stand your Lordship in good stead in your present condition. It consists of two divisions; the former containing the images of seven evils, in the contemplation of which your present troubles will grow light; the latter presenting the images of seven blessings, brought together for the same purpose.

  May it please your Lordship graciously to accept this little work of mine, and to make such use of it that the diligent reading and contemplation of these “images” may minister some small comfort.

  Your Lordship’s humble servant,

  Martin Luther, Doctor.

  PREFACE

  THE APOSTLE PAUL, treating in Romans xv. of the consolations of Christians, writes, “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” [Rom. 15:4] In these words he plainly teaches that our consolations are to be drawn from the Holy Scriptures. Now the Holy Scriptures administer comfort after a twofold fashion, by presenting to our view blessings and evils, most wholesomely intermingled; as the wise Preacher saith, “In the day of evil be mindful of the good, and in the day of good be mindful of the evil.” [Ecclus. 11:26] For the Holy Spirit knows that a thing has only such meaning and value for a man as he assigns to it in his thoughts; for what he holds common and of no value will move him but little, either to pleasure when he obtains it, or to grief when he loses it. Therefore He endeavors with all His might to draw us away from thinking about things and from being moved by them; and when He has effected this, then all things whatsoever are alike to us. Now this drawing away is best accomplished by means of the Word, Whereby our thoughts are turned from the thing that moves us at the present moment to that which either is absent or does not at the moment move us. Therefore it is true that we shall attain to this state of mind only through the comfort of the Scriptures, which call us, in the day of evil, to the contemplation of good things, either present or to come, and, in the day of good, to the contemplation of evil things.

  But let us, for our better understanding of these two series of pictures or images, divide each of them into seven parts. The first series will treat of the evils, and we shall consider (1) the evil within us, (2) the evil before us, (3) the evil behind us, (4) the evil on our left hand, (5) the evil on our right hand, (6) the evil beneath us, and (7) the evil above us.9

  CHAPTER I

  THE FIRST IMAGE

  THE EVIL WITHIN US

  This is most certain and true — we may believe it or not — that no suffering in a man’s experience, be it never so severe, can be the greatest of the evils that are within him. So many more and far greater evils are there within him than any that he feels. And if he were to feel those evils, he would feel the pains of hell; for he holds a hell within himself. Do y
ou ask how this can be? The Prophet says, “All men are liars” [Ps. 116:11] and again, “Every man at his best state is altogether vanity.” [Ps. 39:6] But to be a liar and vanity, is to be without truth and reality; and to be without truth and reality, is to be without God and to be nothing; and this is to be in hell and damned. Therefore, when God in His mercy chastens us, He reveals to us and lays upon us only the lighter evils; for if He were to lead us to the full knowledge of our evil, we should straightway perish. Yet even this He has given some to taste, and of them it is written, “He bringeth down to hell, and bringeth up.” [1 Sam. 2:6] Therefore they say well who call our bodily sufferings the monitors of the evil within. And the Apostle, in Hebrews xii, calls them God’s fatherly chastenings, when he says, “He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.” [Heb. 12:6] And He does this, in order by such scourgings and lesser evils to drive out those great evils, that we may never need to feel them; as it is written, “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” [Prov. 33:15] Do not loving parents grieve more for their sons when they turn out thieves and evil-doers than when they receive a wound? Nay, they themselves beat them until the blood flows, to keep them from becoming evil-doers.10

  What is it, then, that prevents us from feeling this our true evil? It is, as I have said, so ordered by God, that we may not perish on seeing the evils hidden in the depths of our hearts. For God keeps them hidden, and would have us discern them only by faith, when He points them out to us by means of the evil that we feel. Therefore, “In the day of evil be mindful of the good.” [Ecclus. 11:26] Behold, how great a good it is, not to know the whole of our evil! Be mindful of this good, and the evil that you feel will press you less cruelly. Again, “In the day of good be mindful of the evil.” That is to say. Whilst you do not feel your true evil, be grateful for this respite; then will the evil that you feel sit lightly upon you. It is clear, then, that in this life a man’s freedom from pain is always greater than his pain. Not that his whole evil is not present with him, but he does not think about it and is not moved by it, through the goodness of God, Who keeps it hidden.

  How furiously do those men rage against themselves, to whom their true evil has been revealed! How they count as nothing whatever sufferings life may bring, if only they might not feel the hell within! Even so would every one do, who felt or truly believed in the evil within him. Gladly would he call down all external evils on his head, and count them mere child’s play; nay, he would never be more sorrowful than when he had no evils to bear, after the manner of certain of the saints, such as David in Psalm vi. [Ps. 6]

  Therefore, this is our first image of consolation, that a man should say to himself: “Not yet, O man, dost thou feel thine evil. Rejoice and give thanks that thou dost not need to feel it!” And so the lesser evil grows light by comparison with the greatest evil. That is what others mean when they say, “I have deserved far worse things, yea, hell itself” — a thing easy to say, but horrible to contemplate.

  And this evil, though never so deeply hidden, yet puts forth fruits that are plainly enough perceived. These are the dread and uncertainty of a trembling conscience, when faith is assailed, and a man is not sure, or doubts, whether he have a gracious God. And this fruit is bitter in proportion to the weakness of one’s faith. Nay, when rightly considered, this weakness alone, being spiritual, far outweighs every weakness of the body, and renders it, in comparison, light as a feather.

  Moreover, to the evils within us belong all those tragic experiences described by the Preacher, when he refers again and again to “vanity and vexation of spirit.” [Eccl. 1:2, 14] How many of our plans come to naught! How oft our hopes are deceived! How many things that are not to our liking must we see and bear! And the very things that fall out according to our wish fall out also against our wish! So that there is nothing perfect and complete. Finally, all these things are so much greater, the higher one rises in rank and station;11 for such a one will of necessity be driven about by far more and greater billows, floods, and tempests, than others who labor in a like case. As it is truly said in Psalm ciii,12 “In the sea of this world there are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts,” [Ps. 104:25] that is, an infinite number of trials. And Job, for this reason, calls the life of man a “trial.” 13

  These evils do not, indeed, cease to be evils because they are less sharply felt by us; but we have grown accustomed to them from having them constantly with us, and through the goodness of God our thoughts and feelings concerning them have become blunted. That is why they move us the more deeply when we do feel them now and then, since we have not learned through familiarity to despise them. So true is it, therefore, that we feel scarce a thousandth part of our evils, and also that we estimate them and feel them or do not feel them, not as they are in themselves, but only as they exist in our thoughts and feelings.14

  CHAPTER II

  THE SECOND IMAGE

  THE FUTURE EVIL, OR THE EVIL BEFORE US

  It will tend in no small degree to lighten any present evil if a man turn his mind to the evils to come. These are so many, so diverse, and so great, that out of them has arisen one of the strongest emotions of the soul; namely, fear. For fear has been defined by some as the emotion caused by coming evil. Even as the Apostle says in Romans xi, “Be not highminded, but fear.” [Rom. 11:30] This evil is all the greater because of our uncertainty in what form and with what force it may come; so that there goes a popular saying, “No age is proof against the itch,” although this is but a little children’s disease. Even so, no man is safe from the evils that befall any other; for what one has suffered another may suffer also. Here belong all the tragic histories of the ages, and all the lamentations of the world. Here belong the more than three hundred diseases — which some have observed — with which the human body may be vexed. And if there be so many diseases, how great will be the number of other misfortunes that may befall our possessions, our friends, and even our mind itself, that target of all evils, and trysting-place of sorrow and every ill!

  And these evils increase in power and intensity as a man rises to higher rank and dignity;15 in which estate he must needs dread every moment the coming of poverty, disgrace, and every indignity, which may indeed swiftly overtake him, for they all hang by but a slender thread, not unlike the sword which the tyrant Dionysius suspended above the head of the guest at his table.

  And if none of these evils befall us, we should count it our gain, and no small comfort in the evil that does befall us; so that we should feel constrained to say with Jeremiah, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed.” [Lam. 3:22 f.] For when none of them befall us, it is because they have been kept from us by the right hand of the Most High that compasses us about with such mighty power (as we see in Job) that Satan and all evils can but gnash their teeth in helpless rage. [Job 1:10] From this we see how sweetly we ought to love our Lord, whenever any evil comes upon us. For our most loving Father would by that one evil have us see how many evils threaten us and would fall on us, if He did not Himself stand in the way, as though He said, “Satan and the host of evils have desired to have thee, to sift thee as wheat; [Luke:22:31] but I have marked out bounds for the sea, and have said, Hitherto shaft thou come, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed [Job 38:10],” as He saith in Job xxxviii.

  And, granted that perchance, if God please, none of these things will come upon you; nevertheless, that which is known as the greatest of terrors, death, is certain to come, and nothing is less certain than the hour of its coming. Truly, this is so great an evil that there are many who would rather live on amid all the above-named evils than to die once and have them ended. With this one thing the Scriptures, which hold all others in contempt, associate fear, saying, “Remember thy end, and thou shalt never do amiss.” [Ecclus. 7:40] Behold, how many meditations, how many books, how many rules and remedies have been brought together, in order, by calling to men’s minds this one evil, to keep them from
sin, to render the world contemptible, to lighten suffering, to comfort the afflicted, — all by a comparison with this great and terrible, and yet so inevitable, evil of death. This evil even the saints dreaded, and Christ submitted to it with trembling and bloody sweat. [Luke 22:44] So that the divine Mercy hath been nowhere more concerned to comfort our little faith than in the matter of this evil, as we shall see below.16

  But all these things are common to all men, even as the blessings of salvation under these evils are common to all. For Christians, however, there is another and a particular reason for dreading the evils to come, which easily surpasses all the evils that have been mentioned. It is that which the Apostle portrays in I. Corinthians x, when he says, “He that standeth, let him take heed lest he fall.” [1 Cor. 19:12] So unstable is our footing, and so powerful our foe, armed with our own strength (that is, the weapons of our flesh and all our evil lusts), attended by the countless armies of the world, its delights and pleasures on the right hand, its hardships and the plots of wicked men on the left, and, besides all this, master himself of the art of doing us harm, seducing us, and bringing us down to destruction by a thousand different ways. Such is our life that we are not safe for one moment in our good intentions. Cyprian, who in his De Mortalitate17 touches on many of these matters, teaches that death is to be desired as a swift means of escape from these evils. And truly, wherever there have been high-hearted men, who brought their minds steadily to bear on these infinite perils of hell, we find them, with contempt of life and death (that is, all the aforesaid evils), desiring to die, that so they might be delivered at one and the same time from this evil of the sins in which they now are (of which we spoke in the previous chapter), and of the sins into which they might fall (of which we are treating now). And these are, indeed, two most weighty reasons why we should not only desire death, but also despise all evils, to say nothing of lightly bearing a single evil; if the Lord grant us to be moved thereby. For it is God’s gift that we are moved thereby. For what true Christian will not even desire to die, and much more to bear sickness, seeing that, so long as he lives and is in health, he is in sin, and is constantly prone to fall, yea, is falling every day, into more sins; and is thus constantly thwarting the most loving will of his most loving Father! To such a heat of indignation was St. Paul moved, in Romans vii, when after complaining that he did not the good that he would, but the evil that he would not, [Rom. 7:19] he cried out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me the body of this death? The grace of God,” 18 he answers, “through Jesus Christ.”