Page:Works of Martin Luther, with introductions and notes, Volume 1.djvu/129



is most certain and true—we may believe it or not—that no suffering in a man's experience, be it never so severe, can be the greatest of the evils that are within him. So many more and far greater evils are there within him than any that he feels. And if he were to feel those evils, he would feel the pains of hell; for he holds a hell within himself. Do you ask how this can be? The Prophet says, "All men are liars"; and again, "Every man at his best state is altogether vanity." But to be a liar and vanity, is to be without truth and reality; and to be without truth and reality, is to be without God and to be nothing; and this is to be in hell and damned. Therefore, when God in His mercy chastens us, He reveals to us and lays upon us only the lighter evils; for if He were to lead us to the full knowledge of our evil, we should straightway perish. Yet even this He has given some to taste, and of them it is written, "He bringeth down to hell, and bringeth up." Therefore they say well who call our bodily sufferings the monitors of the evil within. And the Apostle, in Hebrews xii, calls them God's fatherly chastenings, when he says, "He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." And He does this, in order by such scourgings and lesser evils to drive out those great evils, that we may never need to feel them; as it is written, "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." Do not loving parents grieve more for their sons when they turn out thieves and evil-doers than