I am sure if I were a man twice as old as he is, there is nothing I should like better than to attend Dr. Luther's lectures. I have heard him preach once in the City Church, and it was quite different from any other sermon I ever heard. He spoke of God and Christ, and heaven and hell, with as much conviction and simplicity as if he had been pleading some cause of human wrong, or relating some great events which happened on earth yesterday, instead of reciting it like a piece of Latin grammar, as so many of the monks do.
I began almost to feel as if I might at last find a religion that would do for me. Even Christopher was attentive. He said Dr. Luther called everything by such plain names, one could not help understanding.
We have seen him once at our house. He was so respectful to our grandmother, and so patient with my father, and he spoke so kindly of Fritz.
Fritz has written to us, and has recommended us to take Dr. Martin Luther for our family confessor. He says he can never repay the good Dr. Luther has done to him. And certainly he writes more brightly and hopefully than he ever has since he left us, although he has, alas! finally taken those dreadful, irrevocable vows.
March, 1513.
Dr. Luther has consented to be our confessor; and thank God I do believe at last I have found the religion which may make me, even me, love God. Dr. Luther says I have entirely misunderstood God and the Lord Jesus Christ. He seemed to understand all I have been longing for and perplexing myself about all my life, with a glance. When I began to falter out my confessions and difficulties to him, he seemed to see them all spread before him, and explained them all to me. He says I have been thinking of God as a severe judge, an exactor, a harsh creditor, when he is a rich Giver, a forgiving Saviour, yea, the very fountain of inexpressible love.
"God's love," he said, "gives in such a way that it flows from a Father's heart, the well-spring of all good. The heart of the giver makes the gift dear and precious; as among ourselves we say of even a trifling gift, 'It comes from a hand we love,' and look not so much at the gift as at the heart."
"If we will only consider him in his works, we shall learn that God is nothing else but pure, unutterable love, greater and more than any one can think. The shameful thing is, that the world does not regard this, nor thank him for it, although every day it sees before it such countless benefits from him; and it deserves for its ingratitude that the sun should not shine another moment longer, nor the grass grow; yet He ceases not, without a moment's interval, to love us, and to do us good. Language must fail me to speak of his spiritual gifts. Here he pours forth for us, not sun and moon, nor heaven and earth, but his own heart, his beloved Son, so that He suffered His blood to be shed, and the most shameful death to be inflicted on Him, for us wretched, wicked, thankless creatures. How, then, can we say anything but that God is an abyss of endless, unfathomable love?"
"The whole Bible," he says, "is full of this,—that we should not doubt, but be absolutely certain, that God is merciful, gracious, patient, faithful, and true; who not only will keep his promises, but already has kept and done abundantly beyond what he promised, since he has given his own Son for our sins on the cross, that all who believe on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
"Whoever believes and embraces this," he added, "that God has given his only Son to die for us poor sinners, to him it is no longer any doubt, but the most certain truth, that God reconciles us to himself, and is favourable and heartily gracious to us."