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Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther by Martin Luther
page 43 of 129 (33%)

Howsoever God dealeth with us, it is always unacceptable.

How, said Luther, should God deal with us? Good days we cannot
bear, evil we cannot endure. Giveth he riches unto us? then are we
proud, so that no man can live by us in peace; nay, we will be
carried upon hands and shoulders, and will be adored as gods.
Giveth he poverty unto us? then are we dismayed, we are impatient,
and murmur against him. Therefore nothing were better for us than
soon to be conveyed to the last dance, and covered with shovels.


Of the acknowledging of Nature.

Adam had no need of books, said Luther, for he had the Book of
Nature; and all the Patriarchs and Prophets, Christ and his
Apostles, do cite much out of that book; as, touching the sorrows of
women bearing children, of the fellowship and community of the
members of man's body, as St. Paul relateth such parables, and saith
that one member cannot miss another: if the eyes did not see,
whither then would the feet go? how would they stumble and fall? If
the hands did not fasten and take hold, how then should we eat? If
the feet went not, where then would the hands get anything? Only
the maw, that lazy drone, lies in the midst of the body, and is
fatted like a swine. This parable, said Luther, teacheth us that
mankind should love one another; as also the Greeks' pictures do
teach concerning two men, the one lame and the other blind, who
showed kindness the one to the other, as much as in them lay. The
lame guided the blind in the way, which else he neither knew nor
saw, and the blind carried the lame, that else could not go; so that
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