Page:Works of Martin Luther, with introductions and notes, Volume 1.djvu/147



our right hand are our friends, in the contemplation of whose evils our own will grow light, as St. Peter teaches, I. Peter v, "Resist the devil, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world." Thus also does the Church entreat in her prayers, that provoked by the example of the saints, we may imitate the virtue of their sufferings; and thus she sings,

From such words and hymns of the Church we learn that the feasts of the saints, their memorials, churches, altars, names, and images, are observed and multiplied to the end that we should be moved by their example to bear the same evils which they also bore. And unless this be the manner of our observance, it is impossible that the worship of saints should be free from superstition. Even as there are many who observe all these things in order to escape the evil which the saints teach us should be borne, and thus to become unlike those whose feasts they keep for the sake of becoming like them.

But the finest treatment of this portion of our consolation is given by the Apostle, when he says, in Hebrews xii: "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him; for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening,