it were, to read in it again.

Yea, even among the nobility there may be found some louts and
scrimps, who declare that there is no longer any need either of
pastors or preachers; that we have everything in books, and every one
can easily learn it by himself; and so they are content to let the
parishes decay and become desolate, and pastors and preachers to suffer
distress and hunger a plenty, just as it becomes crazy Germans to do.
For we Germans have such disgraceful people, and must endure them.

But for myself I say this: I am also a doctor and preacher, yea, as
learned and experienced as all those may be who have such presumption
and security; yet I do as a child who is being taught the Catechism,
and every morning, and whenever I have time, I read and say, word for
word, the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Psalms,
etc. And I must still read and study daily, and yet I cannot master it
as I wish, but must remain a child and pupil of the Catechism, and am
glad so to remain. And yet these delicate, fastidious fellows would
with one reading promptly be doctors above all doctors, know everything
and be in need of nothing. Well, this, too, is indeed a sure sign that
they despise both their office and the souls of the people, yea, even
God and His Word. They do not have to fall, they are already fallen all
too horribly, they would need to become children, and begin to learn
their alphabet, which they imagine that they have long since outgrown.

Therefore I beg such lazy paunches or presumptuous saints to be
persuaded and believe for God's sake that they are verily, verily! not
so learned or such great doctors as they imagine; and never to presume
that they have finished learning this [the parts of the Catechism], or
know it well enough in all points, even though they think that they