Quotes from Martin Luther

The ultimate blessing that God can confer on a man is the possession of a good and pious wife.

In his ministry to the sick Luther recommended physicians, barbers, and apothecaries. Resort to medicine is desirable, he said, and it is well that physicians and nurses do what they can. However, Luther went beyond most of these physicians in pointing to the mental and emotional origin of some physical ailments. "Our physical health depends in large measure on the thoughts of our minds. This is in accord with the saying, 'Good cheer is half the battle.'"{18}

Therefore the ungodly will not rise in the judgment," because the Jews do not confess their wrong and do not accuse themselves. But as the righteous man is the first to accuse himself, so the ungodly man is the first to defend himself. Thus the Jews do not accuse their own ungodliness but defend it.

I fear that most of them have been too literally his vicars. A man is a vicar only when his superior is absent. If the pope rules, while Christ is absent and does not dwell in his heart, what else is he but a vicar of Christ? What is the church under such a vicar but a mass of people without Christ?

How much more properly did the apostles call themselves servants of the present Christ and not vicars of an absent Christ.

Over against the devil and his missionaries, the authors of false doctrines and sects, we ought to be like the Apostle, impatient, and rigorously condemnatory, as parents are with the dog that bites their little one, but the weeping child itself they soothe.

Therefore let us avoid these men of blood and not allow them to draw us into Judaism.

This name reminds us of Baptism, which should be practiced in daily tribulations and produce its effects so that we grow into a new and perfect man (cf. Eph. 4:13-15) and in this way the name of Christian be perfected until our name and Old Adam are abolished. Therefore

For it is not possible to make the mercy of God large and good, unless a person first makes his miseries large and evil or recognizes them to be such. To make God's mercy great is not, as is commonly supposed, to think that God considers sins as small or that He does not punish them.

Let us then consider it certain and firmly established that the soul can do without anything except the Word of God and that where the Word of God is missing there is no help at all for the soul.

Reason fails to understand this, "for the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." (I Cor. 2:14.) It therefore seeks righteousness in externals. However, we learn from the Word of God that there is nothing under the sun that can make us righteous before God and a new creature except Christ Jesus.

There is nothing more insufferable and poisonous on earth than a barefoot monk.