The Quotable Luther #9 Heresy

I found the following quote allocated to my blogger drafts. It's been there for quite a while, and now, months later, I don't remember putting it there. It must've been something I planned on writing on, but I've since forgotten what I intended to do with it. Now here's the irony: I forgot to include the source from where I got it. It definitely came from one of my books, not the Internet, and it was probably a sermon.

A heretic must be trapped by clear, strong passages, else they wriggle away from us and escape like fish that squirm through a net. Heretics are very slippery. It’s very difficult to hold them and they treat the divine Scriptures recklessly. That means all that they will use is everything in Scripture that bears their opinions, and the rest of Scripture must let itself be directed, bow down and defer to their noggins and understanding. That is why we must hear God’s Word with fear, and treat it in humility and not prod around in it with our own opinions.You’d do well to prefer falling into all kinds of sins rather than into your own darkness, so dangerous and destructive. For God’s Word is nothing to play around with. If you cannot understand it, then leave it alone. It will not suffer itself to be diminished nor defined by man, but rather it must be taken seriously. It must be respected and rightly handled. For that reason guard yourself that you don’t impose your own darkness onto Scripture, as if your life depended on it. When this malady takes root, then not I, but the devil is in charge. That is why it is good St.Paul says in Titus 3.10: “Depart from a divisive man after he is admonished once or twice, and know that such a man is perverted and sins as one who is self-condemned.” Therefore guard yourselves from the sects. It is easy to join them but very difficult to get out again. Believe me, you will have a harder time leaving them than joining.