and Justus Jonas. To JUSTUS JONAS. "Grace and peace to you in Christ. Although I never expected or wished that my writings should obtain any lasting fame or authority in the world, but was ever well content if I might prove the means of leading men to study and understand the scriptures, and thus, under the Holy Spirit's guidance, to drink copiously from those overflowing fountains, rather than to sip from my tiny rills; yet perceiving how few rightly handle the inspired writings-how many, pervert and distort them, following their own spirits, I begin to regard what I have written with less aversion than I did, and to be less unwilling that it should spread in the world. For, though I am nothing, and in my own native tongue am but rude and barbarous, yet certainly I have always taught zealously and faithfully that which is the very basis of all Christian truth, namely the doctrine of grace, justification, and the remission of sins so that here I may glory in the Lord with S. Paul, and say, Though rude in speech, yet not in knowledge.... "The notion of human righteousness, or that of works is so deeply rooted in men's hearts, that they find it impossible to detach it from the righteousness of faith or grace. And no wonder: for I myself have found by numberless severe conflicts continued to this very day, how arduous a thing it is, how purely it is a matter of divine gift, to have the knowledge of the doctrine, that we are justified by grace without works, that faith in Christ alone is the 1 A very different opinion than others have formed. "Sermonem patrium ditaverit" would be applied to him. only righteousness of the saints,-to have this knowledge rooted and turned into a principle in the soul. This far exceeds the capacity of the human heart, and the conceptions of mankind. What can they do here, who, without any experience of this kind,' promise themselves every thing from the bare perusal of the scriptures, and that so presumptuously conducted, that, when they have once read over a book, they are confident they comprehend the whole of its contents? Such men learn to repeat the words, Faith justifies, Works do not justify; but, when those parts of scripture come before them, in which these truths are most beautifully and most forcibly set forth, they are blind and deaf and dumb to them; they have not a word to say upon them: thereby evidently declaring that they have learned the terms, indeed, from us, but remain perfect strangers to the thing.But to expound the scriptures and pass over this article is no other than to darken and corrupt them for there is scarcely a syllable which is not directed to this end-to give us the knowledge of Christ. "When I consider these things, I am willing that some of my books should be translated into Latin, and added to the excellent writings of this age, like the haircloth to the purple hangings of the tabernacle: and among the rest that my expositions of the prophet Jonah should receive this honour from your eloquent pen... I doubt not that my book will be so improved in your hands, as henceforth to pass for your's and not mine: but in that I shall rejoice, and take such a theft for an act of great kindness. I do not flatter you, and secretly gratify myself in speak 1 Of these things-the conflicts above mentioned. ing thus: but my zeal consumes me, when I see how the whole world disregards, nay opposes and execrates the great theme of the gospel, while the eloquence of all nations is employed in celebrating what is mere dross and dung in comparison with it. "But I hope that the employment will be profitable to yourself, and that Jonas in translating Jonas will find his own reward. I trust the work will tend to heal the wound you have received in the too early death of a fourth son! You will hear my Jonas saying to you, Jonas why weepest thou? Behold me plunged for three days and three nights in the depth of the sea, in the belly of hell. Thy grief is deep, but not like mine.... Yet remember the compassion of God, which passeth all understanding. He would not suffer me to perish, but brought me up again safe, and triumphant over both the sea and the sea-monster.'. ... "So my Jonas will speak to you, and much better than I can do. I commend you therefore to one another, that, as you agree in name, so you may be united in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. That this may be your portion and mine for ever, may He grant, who is our peace and consolation-Jesus Christ, blessed for ever.. Amen."-May 1530.1 V. 66 It may have been observed that no use has been made in this volume, nor any, I believe, in Dr. Milner's volumes, of the work which 1 Strobel. No. 99. may passes under the above title. No doubt it contain many amusing and many good things: but it has been the fruitful source of those absurd stories and extravagant sayings, which have greatly lowered the character of Luther with many superficial readers: and the reason for not here making any use of it shall be assigned by bishop Atterbury. "It is a book," he says, "not received into the canon by the learned. It depends purely on the credit of one Van Sparr, that tells a blind story of his finding it in the ruins of an old house, many years after Luther, and Aurifaber the pretended compiler, were dead: but, should it be genuine, yet no fair adversary would urge loose table talk against a man in controversy, and build serious inferences upon what perhaps was spoken but in jest. It may serve to divert a reader, but is not fit to convince him."1 It is the more hard that Luther should have suffered from a publication of this kind, when he had thus addressed his friends, concerning such even of his written papers, as might by any means have come into their hands. "I entreat. them, in the name of Christ, not to be ready to publish such things, either while I live or after my death. From the times in which I live, and from the part I am obliged to act, it cannot but be that many strange thoughts should bubble up in my mind by night and by day, which the impossibility of otherwise retaining them obliges me to note down upon paper, like a confused, chaos, in the fewest words possible, for future use. But to publish such things, however obtained, would be both ungrateful and inhuman.... Not that they are wicked and bad, 1 Answer to Considerations, pp. 26, 55, 78. but because many of them, when I am able coolly to reflect upon them, appear to myself foolish and to be rejected. Wherefore I again entreat that no one of my friends will publish any thing of mine without my concurrence. If he does, he must take the whole responsibility upon himself. Charity and justice require it."1 1 Seck. in Indice tertio: anno 1537. THE END. |