Quotes from Martin Luther

Trying to merit grace by preceding works, therefore, is trying to placate God with sins, which is nothing but heaping sins upon sins, making fun of God, and provoking His wrath.

For the Lord does not speak in vain, nor does He offer His Word to the lazy and smug, but to those who are in need, who toil, who are afflicted and are undergoing a very difficult conflict against the flesh and all external appearances, that is, against those things which according to human sense and reason fight against faith, as Heb. 11 says, so that the afflicted can rely on the sole protection of the Word of God and be sustained by it.

A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.

For more than twenty years I was a pious monk, read Mass daily, and so weakened myself with fasting and praying that I would not have been long for this life had I continued. Yet all this taken together cannot help me in even one little crisis to be able to say before God: 'All this I have done, now please consider it, and be gracious to me.' What else did I achieve with this than to plague myself uselessly, impair my health, and waste my time?

Neither men who try to keep the Law, nor those who do not try to keep it, are justified before God, for they are all spiritually dead.

Thus the Turks also regard us as damned because of the disasters and troubles we endure. But they promise themselves eternal happiness because they flourish in this life with wealth and power. This is the Egyptian philosophy and the Turkish religion. The Christian doctrine refutes it, as is taught elsewhere.

Therefore we must be steadfast; we must be Constantines, stouthearted,13 and rocks, lest we "be carried about with every wind of doctrine" (Eph. 4:14).

In addition, when these men were confronted, they did not stubbornly persist in their sins but repented. Paul commands that we should accept, instruct, and restore such people (Galatians 6:1). So those who sin and fall because of weakness will not be refused forgiveness if they stand up again and do not persist in their sin. Persisting in sin is disastrous.

Accordingly, let us, too, learn to put aside all questions and simply to go in the name of the Lord and do whatever God has commanded, whether it is foolish, offensive, or dangerous. If God's command is connected with it, even a work that is disgraceful and shameful in the sight of reason is most beautiful and holy; for there is no greater and better adornment than the Word of God.

Moreover, I cannot bear with laws for the interpretation of the word of God, since the word of God, which teaches liberty in all other things, ought not to be bound.

Nothing so provokes God as unbelief, for this means denying God directly and thus committing idolatry.

It is rumored that the plague has broken out here, but the report is empty and false; by the favor of Christ everything is safe and quiet.