Page:Works of Martin Luther, with introductions and notes, Volume 1.djvu/107

 Rh In making confession diligence should be used to distinguish with great care between sins committed against the Commandments of God and sins committed against the statutes of men. I say this because of the mad opinion, which is now prevalent, that sins which are committed against the decretals of the popes are to be noted with wondrous care, but sins committed against God, with little or none.

Let me give you some illustrations:

You will find priests and monks who are horrified, as at some prodigy, if they stammer, or repeat even a syllable in the Canon of the Mass, though this may be a natural defect of the tongue, or an accident, and is not a sin. Again, there is no priest who does not confess that he was distracted, or failed to read his, or other old-womanish trifles of the kind. There was one who, even when he was at the altar celebrating, called a priest three times and confessed that something had happened. Indeed, I have seen these endless jests of the devil taken by many so seriously that they almost lost their minds. And yet the fact that they cherished hatred or envy in their hearts, that they had cursed before or after Mass, that they had intentionally lied or slandered, all this moved them not at all. Whence this perversity? From the "traditions of men who turn from the truth," as the Apostle says. Because we have neglected to offer God a confession of true sins, He has given us up to our reprobate sense, so that we delude ourselves with fictitious sins and deprive ourselves of the benefit of the sacrament, and the more we seem to seek it, the more this is true.

Of this stuff are those who make the neglect of the