Luther, on the Scriptures, from "Table Talk":
Dr. Luther once said: "Had I known at first, before I began to write, what I now know, that people are so hostile to the Word of God, and determined to oppose it, I should certainly have held my tongue. I should never have been so bold as to attack the Pope and almost all men, and incense them against me. I thought that they sinned through ignorance and human frailty. I did not understand that they purposely kept down the Word of God. But God drew me on in my blindness, just as men blind a horse that he may run the better."
---
A quote from the
introduction to a small book of selections from Luther’s Table
Talk.
“One more example
may be given of German reverence for Luther. Heine was a Jew by
birth, and a religious skeptic, and as a critic he often
employed his unrivaled mastery of gibes and sarcasms in sneering
away German reputations. But of Luther he wrote: —
“Honor to Luther!
Everlasting honor to the dear man to whom we owe the recovery
of our noblest rights, and through whose labors we live today!
It becomes us ill to complain of the narrowness of his views.
The dwarf who stands upon the shoulders of the giant may
certainly see farther, especially if he puts on spectacles;
but he cannot bring to the prospect the lofty emotion and the
giant heart of the other. It becomes us the less to judge his
faults severely, as his very faults were of more service to us
than the virtues of a thousand others. The fine discernment of
Erasmus, and the gentleness of Melanchthon, had never done so
much for us as the divine brutality of Brother Martin.”
