This argument (said Luther), concludeth so much as nothing; for, although they had been angels from heaven, yet that troubleth me nothing at all; we are now dealing about God's word, and with the truth of the Gospel, that is a matter of far greater weight to have the same kept and preserved pure and clear; therefore we (said Luther), neither care nor trouble ourselves for, and about, the greatness of Saint Peter and the other Apostles, or how many and great miracles they wrought: the thing which we strive for is, that the truth of the Holy Gospel may stand; for God regardeth not men's reputations nor persons.
Oh, that the dear man Luther had but told us here what he meant by the term, Gospel! That St. Paul had seen even St. Luke's, is but a conjecture, grounded on a conjectural interpretation of a single text, doubly equivocal; namely, that the Luke mentioned was the same with the Evangelist Luke; and that the
evangelium
signified a book; the latter, of itself improbable, derives its probability from the undoubtedly very strong probability of the former. If then not any book, much less the four books, now called the four Gospels, were meant by Paul, but the contents of those books, as far as they are veracious, and whatever else was known on equal authority at that time, though not contained in those books; if, in short, the whole sum of Christ's acts and discourses be what Paul meant by the Gospel; then the argument is circuitous, and returns to the first point,—What
is
the Gospel? Shall we believe you, and not rather the companions of Christ, the eye and ear witnesses of his doings and sayings? Now I should require strong inducements to make me believe that St. Paul had been guilty of such palpably false logic; and I therefore feel myself compelled to infer, that by the Gospel Paul intended the eternal truths known ideally from the beginning, and historically realized in the manifestation of the Word in Christ Jesus; and that he used the ideal immutable truth as the canon and criterion of the oral traditions. For example, a Greek mathematician, standing in the same relation of time and country to Euclid as that in which St. Paul stood to Jesus Christ, might have exclaimed in the same spirit: "What do you talk to me of this, that, and the other intimate acquaintance of Euclid's? My object is to convey the sublime system of geometry which he realized, and by that must I decide." "I," says St. Paul, "have been taught by the spirit of Christ, a teaching susceptible of no addition, and for which no personal anecdotes, however reverendly attested, can be a substitute." But dearest Luther was a translator; he could not, must not, see this.
Ib. p. 32.
That God's word, and the Christian Church, is preserved against the raging of the world.
The Papists have lost the cause; with God's word they are not able to resist or withstand us. * * * The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together, &c. God will deal well enough with these angry gentlemen, and will give them but small thanks for their labor, in going about to suppress his word and servants; he hath sat in counsel above these five thousand five hundred years, hath ruled and made laws. Good Sirs! be not so choleric; go further from the wall, lest you knock your pates against it. Kiss the Son lest he be angry, &c. That is, take hold on Christ, or the Devil will take hold on you, &c.
The second Psalm (said Luther), is a proud Psalm against those fellows. It begins mild and simply, but it endeth stately and rattling. * * * I have now angered the Pope about his images of idolatry. O! how the sow raiseth her bristles! * * The Lord saith: Ego suscitabo vos in novissimo die: and then he will call and say: ho! Martin Luther, Philip Melancthon, Justus Jonas, John Calvin, &c. Arise, come up, * * * Well on, (said Luther), let us be of good comfort.
A delicious paragraph. How our fine preachers would turn up their Tom-tit beaks and flirt with their tails at it! But this is the way in which the man of life, the man of power, sets the dry bones in motion.