Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/72

 Scriptures bestow on the chastity of married life.

But is there nothing that can bear comparison with an obe- dient soul ? Indeed there is nothing that can bear comparison with a continent soul (that is with a chaste wife), not only because it is commanded by God, but also because, as the well- known proverb has it, there is nothing in the world more desirable than a chaste wife. But these faithful interpreters of Scripture apply everything that is said about the continence which is commanded to the continence which is not commanded, and make a mere human comparison the measure of God's judgment Thus they grant dispensations from everything, even from the obedience we owe to God, but they grant no dispensations from continence, even from that forbidden con- tinence which is assumed against the authority of one's parents. Oh, worthy and truly papistical doctorlings and teacherlings ! Virginity and chastity are to be praised, but in^uch wise that by their very greatness men are frightened off from them rather than led into them. This was Christ's way. When the disciples lauded continence and said,^ ''If the case of a man be so with his wife, it is expedient not to marry," He at once disabused their minds of that idea, and said, "All men cannot receive this saying." The saying must be received, but it was His will that only a few should understand it/

But to come back to you, my dear father; will you still take me out of the cloister? If so, do not boast of it, for God has anticipated you, and taken me out Himself, What difference does it make whether I retain or lay aside the cowl and the tonsure? Do they make the monk? "All things are yours, but ye are Christ's," says Paul ; * and shall I belong to the cowl, or shall not the cowl rather belong to me? My con- science is freed, and that is the most complete liberty. There- fore I am still a monk, but not a monk, and a new creature, not of the Pope, but 'of Christ, for the Pope also has creatures and is a creator of puppets and idols and masks and straw men, of which I formerly was one, seduced by the various usages of words, by which even the Wise Man confesses* that he was brought into ^dan-

^ Mattbew xix, zof.

•I Corinthians ui, 22, • EcclesiastJcus xxxiv, la.

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