more covetous; they rake and rend all they can, to the end enough
may be left for their children. They do not know that before a
child comes to the world, and is born, it hath its lot; and already
is ordained and determined what and how much it shall have, and what
shall be thereout. In the state of matrimony we learn and find that
begetting and bearing of children stands and consists not in our
wills and pleasures, for the parents can neither see nor know
whether they be fruitful or no, nor whether God will give them a son
or a daughter. All this is done without our ordaining, thinking, or
foreknowledge. My father and mother did not think that they should
have brought a superintendent into the world; it is only God's
Creation which we cannot rightly understand nor conceive. I
believe, said Luther, that in the life to come we shall have nothing
else to do than to meditate of our Creator, and of his celestial
creatures, and wonder at the same.



OF THE NATURE OF THE WORLD.



Of the World, and of the Manner thereof.

The world, said Luther, will neither have nor hold God for God, nor
the devil for the devil. And if a man were left to himself, and
should be suffered to do after his own kind and nature, then would
he willingly throw our Lord God out at the window; for the world
regards God nothing at all, as the Psalm saith, Dixit impius in
corde suo, non est Deus. On the contrary, the god of the world is