profit and fruit which God's Word produces, whence would I get enough
paper and time? The devil is called the master of a thousand arts. But
what shall we call God's Word, which drives away and brings to naught
this master of a thousand arts with all his arts and power? It must
indeed be the master of more than a hundred thousand arts. And shall we
frivolously despise such power, profit, strength, and fruit -- we,
especially, who claim to be pastors and preachers? If so, we should not
only have nothing given us to eat, but be driven out, being baited with
dogs, and pelted with dung, because we not only need all this every day
as we need our daily bread but must also daily use it against the daily
and unabated attacks and lurking of the devil, the master of a thousand
arts.

And if this were not sufficient to admonish us to read the Catechism
daily, yet we should feel sufficiently constrained by the command of
God alone, who solemnly enjoins in Deut. 6, 6 ff. that we should always
meditate upon His precepts, sitting, walking, standing, Lying down, and
rising, and have them before our eyes and in our hands as a constant
mark and sign. Doubtless He did not so solemnly require and enjoin this
without a purpose; but because He knows our danger and need, as well as
the constant and furious assaults and temptations of devils, He wishes
to warn, equip, and preserve us against them, as with a good armor
against their fiery darts and with good medicine against their evil
infection and suggestion.

Oh, what mad, senseless fools are we that, while we must ever live and
dwell among such mighty enemies as the devils are, we nevertheless
despise our weapons and defense, and are too lazy to look at or think
of them! And what else are such supercilious, presumptuous saints, who
are unwilling to read and study the Catechism daily, doing than