and miserable people!


What is to be considered in the executing of Offices.

If, said Luther, the great pains and labour which I take sprang not
from love and for the sake of him that died for me, the world could
not give me money enough to write only one book, or to translate the
Bible. I desire not to be rewarded and paid of the world for my
book; the world is too poor and simple to give me satisfaction. I
have not desired the value of one penny of my master the Prince
Elector of Saxony, so long as I have been in this place. The whole
world is nothing else but a turned-about Decalogus, or the Ten
Commandments backwards, a wizard, and a picture of the devil. All
contemners of God, all blasphemers, all disobedient; whoredom,
pride, theft, murder, etc., are now almost ripe for the slaughter;
neither is the devil idle, with Turk and Pope, heresies and other
erroneous sects. Every man draws the Christian liberty only to
carnal excess, as if now they had free liberty and power to do what
they list; therefore the kingdom of the devil and Pope is the best
government for the world, for therewith they will be governed with
strict laws and rights, with superstition, unbelief, etc.

The world grows worse through the doctrine of God's Grace and
preaching of the Gospel; for when they hear that after this life
there is another, they are well enough content with this life, and
that God should keep the other to himself; if they may have here but
only good days, honour, and wealth, that is all they care for or
desire.