Quotes about Luther

no one would be happier than Luther to be commended by the testimony of the time that he had been neither slack nor deceitful in maintaining the course of truth, but had shown quite enough and even too much vehemence.

It was easy for you to say these things, since you either knew you were not writing to Luther, but for the general public, or you did not reflect that it was Luther you were writing against, whom I hope you allow nonetheless to have some acquaintance with Holy Writ and some judgment in respect of it.

all heathen books are poisoned through and through with this striving after praise and honor.

the history of Protestantism is very great. It presents like no other of Luther's writings the central thought of Christianity, the justification of the sinner for the sake of Christ's merits alone.

Church and State are both rent, by the tugging of the demonic and the Divine

Theology is nothing else but grammar engaged with the words of the Holy Spirit.

To hear commandments is nothing unless the Spirit teaches us the Law without a mediator and Moses.

anyone trying to be a Pauline exegete while still in thrall to Luther should consider a career as a taxidermist. Heroes are to be engaged with, not stuffed and mounted and allowed to dominate the room.

Luther's strong point was what Jesus said at the Last Supper: 'This is my body'. He wrote the Latin in beer-froth on the table: Hoc est corpus meus.

In things that are "below him," man has freedom in Luther's view to act as he sees fit. In things "above," however, the matter is different; there we encounter the problem of God's predestination.

I shall never be a heretic; I may err in dispute, but I do not wish to decide anything finally; on the other hand, I am not bound by the opinions of men.

Luther believed that the body and blood of Christ are really and locally present in the Eucharist. And when asked, How can the body of Christ which is in heaven be in many different places at the same time? He answered that the body of Christ is everywhere. And when asked, How can that be? His only answer was, That in virtue of the incarnation the attributes of the divine nature were communicated to the human, so that wherever the Logos is there the soul and body of Christ must be.