Strong Opinions Outworn by Time

I should have no compassion on witches; I would burn all of them.  We read in the old law that the priests threw the first stone at such malefactors.  Our ordinary sins offend and anger God.  What then must be His wrath against witchcraft, which we may justly designate high treason against divine majesty, a revolt against the infinite power of God.  The maladies I suffer are not natural but devils’ spells.

Luther, taking up a caterpillar, said:  “’Tis an emblem of the devil in its crawling, and bears his colours in its changing hue.”

The devil plagues and torments us in the place where we are most tender and weak.  In Paradise he fell not upon Adam, but upon Eve.  It commonly rains where it was wet enough before.

The anabaptists pretend that children, not as yet having reason, ought not to receive baptism.  I answer:  That reason in no way contributes to faith.  Nay, in that children are destitute of reason they are all the more fit and proper recipients of baptism.  For reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things.

I always loved music.  A schoolmaster ought to have skill in music, or I would not regard him; neither should we ordain young men as preachers unless they have been well exercised in music.

Erasmus of Rotterdam is the vilest miscreant that ever disgraced the earth.  He made several attempts to draw me into his snares, and I should have been in danger but that God lent me special aid.  Erasmus was poisoned at Rome and at Venice with epicurean doctrines.  His chief doctrine is that we must carry ourselves according to the time, or, as the proverb goes, hang the cloak according to the wind.  I hold Erasmus to be Christ’s most bitter enemy.

I never work better than when I am inspired by anger.  When I am angry I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.

Characteristic Sayings

When the abbot throws the dice, the whole convent will play.

When men blaspheme we should pray and be silent, and not carry wood to the fire.

When Jesus Christ utters a word, He opens His mouth so wide that it embraces all heaven and earth, even though that word be but in a whisper.

When I lay sucking at my mother’s breast I had no notion how I should afterwards eat, drink, and live.  Even so we on the earth have no idea what the life to come will be.

The two sins, hatred and pride, deck and trim themselves out as the devil clothed himself in the Godhead.  Hatred will be godlike; pride will be truth.  These two are right deadly sins; hatred is killing, pride is lying.

A scorpion thinks that when his head lies hid under a leaf he cannot be seen; even so the hypocrites and false saints think, when they have hoisted up one or two good works, all their sins therewith are covered and hid.