Page:Works of Martin Luther, with introductions and notes, Volume 1.djvu/164

150 since it was imposed in paradise, as a penance and satisfaction. For it is true that, through the envy of the devil, death entered into the world; but it is of the Lord's surpassing goodness that, after having thus entered in, it is not permitted to harm us very much, but is taken captive from the very beginning, and set to be the punishment and death of sin.

This He signified when, after having in His commandment foretold the death of Adam, He did not afterward hold His peace, but imposed death anew, and tempered the severity of His commandment, nay, He did not so much as mention death with a single syllable, but said only, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return"; and, "Until thou return unto the ground, from whence thou wast taken"—as if He then so bitterly hated death that He would not deign to call it by its name, according to the word, "Wrath is in His indignation; and life in His good will." Thus He seemed to say that, unless death had been necessary to the abolishing of sin, He would not have been willing to know it nor to name it, much less to impose it. And so, against sin, which wrought death, the zeal of God arms none other than this very death again; so that you may here see exemplified the poet's line,

Even so sin is destroyed by its own fruit, and is slain by the death which it brought forth; as a viper is slain by its own offspring. This is a brave spectacle, to see how death is destroyed, not by another's work, but by its own; is stabbed with its own weapon, and, like Goliath, is beheaded with its own sword. For Goliath also was a type of sin, a giant terrible to all save the young lad David,