AELW 8:237
"Psalm 44:4-6 "Through Thee we push down our foes; through Thy name we tread down our assailants. For not in my bow do I trust, nor can my sword save me." He is a king of faith, and his kingdom is a kingdom of faith; and although he is a temporal king, nevertheless he has been fortified with and surrounded by divine promises.
And this is the way to read the histories of the saints, which should be preferred to all chronicles of the achievements of Hannibal, Scipio, and Alexander the Great. Although those chronicles were held in the highest esteem among the Greeks and Latin authors, they are by no means to be compared to these. For they lack this glory of a divine quality; they have no promise. Therefore they are fortuitous and uncertain. But even though seemingly trifling and obscure things are described in the histories of the saints, nevertheless they are actually very important and glorious; for here it is not one nation and the people of the Philistines, the Moabites, etc., that are conquered. No, the prince of the world, who wanted this small and feeble kingdom to be destroyed and annihilated, is overcome. Therefore they are very find and precious histories in the sight of God. For they have greater weight and influence than all other chronicles, which are uncertain and contain things that happen fortuitously, especially before the fact. They cannot boast of a successful outcome except after the fact."(emphasis mine)
2 comments:
Crap. Our library doesn't have it either. It used to be that I could request it via interlibray loan but they've stopped the most useful parts of that service here so that the book has to be at least a year old, be in State, and fit other criteria. Bummer. I'll probably forget by June 2009.
Oh, and Luther is so full of gas sometimes, such as in this quote. It is like unto his disparaging remarks against Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas. He is mad at his contemporaries and their abuses and takes it out on the ancients, etc. The histories of the pagans have their limits. They can't be compared to the Word of God. But they are a long way from worthless.
The reason why I liked this quote is the contrast or idea of the boasting of men after they have achieved victory and then their promises versus the Word of God who came with both the victory and the promise...maybe I read too much into the quote, but I still like it. ;-)
And Luther's quotes on gas are still ahead in future readings...
Post a Comment