The Quotable Luther #4

Is it not true that money, property, body, wife, child, friends, and the like, are good things created and given by God Himself? Since, then, they are God’s gifts and not your own, suppose He were to try you, to learn whether you were willing to let them go for His sake and to cleave to Him rather than to such gifts of His. Suppose He raised up an enemy, who deprived you of them in whole or in part, or you lost them by death or some other mischance. Do you think you would have just cause to rage and storm, and to take them again by force, or to sulk impatiently until they were restored to you? And if you said that they were good things and God’s creatures, made with His own hands, and that, since all the Scriptures called such things good, you were resolved to fulfill God’s Word and defend or get back such goods at cost of life and limb, or not willingly to suffer their loss nor let them go with patience — what a farce would that be! To do right in this case, you should not rush in pellmell, but fear God and say, “Dear Lord, they are good things and gifts of Thine, as Thine own Word and Scripture saith; nevertheless I know not whether Thou wilt permit me to keep them. Did I know I was not to have them, I would not move a finger to get them back. Did I know that Thou wouldst rather have them remain in my possession than in that of others, I would serve Thy will by taking them back at risk of life and property. But now, since I know neither, and see that for the present Thou sufferest them to be taken from me, I commit the case to Thee. I will await what I am to do, and be ready to have them or to do without them.”

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