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been twice as much, the exposure made of the popish sophistry, and of the calumnies circulated against the protestants, would have well repaid it.-Brentius also pronounced, that the charges attending all the diets within their memory, would have been well paid in exchange for such a treasure as the Confession and the Defence of it."

I subjoin the substance of two more letters, Letters, both of which contain proofs of his tender sympathy with his friends.

TO CORDATUS, on the death of his son.

"Grace and peace to you in Christ. May to Cordatus he comfort you, my dear Cordatus, under your present affliction! for who else can assuage your grief? I can easily enter into all you write, for I know the heart of a father, and that an event of this kind pierces it more keenly than a two-edged sword. But you

should think it no wonder, if He, who is more truly and properly his father, than you are, chose rather, from the love he bore him, to have your child, nay let me say his child, with himself, than with you. He is more safe there than he could be here.-But I am sensible that it is in vain to urge these considerations under the anguish of a recent stroke. I will allow you then for the present to grieve: greater and better men than we have done it, and been blameless.-No doubt it will be beneficial for you to have undergone a trial of this kind also, and to have felt the workings of conscience under it, that you may experimentally know the power of the word and of faith, which is discovered in such circumstances.-Salute the

partner of your sorrows. Still let your joy in a living Saviour surpass your grief for a deceased son-or rather a son still living though withdrawn from you. My wife and all our family desire to be remembered to you. 2 April, 1530." 1

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.

1 Strobel. No. 98.

2

A very different opinion than others have formed. "Sermonem patrium ditaverit" would be applied to him.

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 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

1 Of these things-the conflicts above mentioned.

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 speaking 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

1 Strobel. No. 99.

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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 passes under the above title. No doubt it may 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

1 Answer to Considerations, pp. 26, 55, 78.

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