esteeming themselves much more learned than God Himself with all His
saints, angels [patriarchs], prophets, apostles, and all Christians For
inasmuch as God Himself is not ashamed to teach these things daily, as
knowing nothing better to teach, and always keeps teaching the same
thing, and does not take up anything new or different, and all the
saints know nothing better or different to learn, and cannot finish
learning this, are we not the finest of all fellows to imagine, if we
have once read or heard it, that we know it all, and have no further
need to read and learn, but can finish learning in one hour what God
Himself cannot finish teaching, although He is engaged in teaching it
from the beginning to the end of the world, and all prophets, together
with all saints, have been occupied with learning it and have ever
remained pupils, and must continue to be such ?

For it needs must be that whoever knows the Ten Commandments perfectly
must know all the Scriptures, so that, in all affairs and cases, he can
advise, help, comfort, judge, and decide both spiritual and temporal
matters and is qualified to sit in judgment upon all doctrines,
estates, spirits, laws, and whatever else is in the world. And what,
indeed, is the entire Psalter but thoughts and exercises upon the First
Commandment? Now I know of a truth that such lazy paunches and
presumptuous spirits do not understand a single psalm, much less the
entire Holy Scriptures; and yet they pretend to know and despise the
Catechism, which is a compend and brief summary of all the Holy
Scriptures.

Therefore I again implore all Christians, especially pastors and
preachers, not to be doctors too soon, and imagine that they know
everything (for imagination and cloth unshrunk [and false weights] fall
far short of the measure), but that they daily exercise themselves well