Page:Works of Martin Luther, with introductions and notes, Volume 1.djvu/176

162 things because of the evil example of the people of Sodom, so that he made progress thereby in his righteousness. It must needs be that these offences come, which furnish us an occasion for conflict and for victory; but woe unto the world because of offences! But if God procures us such great blessings in the sins of others, should we not with our whole heart believe that He will work us much greater blessings in our own troubles; even though our flesh and blood judge it to be otherwise!

Nor does the world confer a smaller blessing on us from another side of its evils; namely, its adversities. For, when it is unable to swallow us up with its allurements, and through its offences to make us one with itself, it endeavors through sufferings to drive us out, and through pains to cast us forth; always laying snares for us by the example of its sins, or else visiting its fury upon us through the torment of its pains. This is indeed that fabled monster, Chimæra, with the head of a maiden, seductive, the body of a lion, cruel, and the tail of a serpent, deadly. For the end of the world, both of its pleasures and its tyranny, is poison and death everlasting. Hence, even as God grants us to find our blessings in the sins of the world, so also its persecutions, that they may not remain fruitless and in vain, are appointed unto us to increase our blessings; so that the very things that work us harm are turned to our profit. As St. Augustine says, concerning the innocents slain by Herod, "Never could he have done them so much good with his favor as he did with his hatred." And St. Agatha, the blessed martyr, went to prison as to a banquet chamber; "for," said she, "except thou cause my body to be well broken by thy executioners, my soul will not be able to enter paradise, bearing the victor's palm; even as a grain of wheat, except it be stript of its husk, and