Quotes by Reformers - Page 2

Faith is a living and unshakable confidence a belief in the grace of God so assured that a man would die a thousand deaths for its sake.
Martin Luther
Faith is nothing else than trust in the divine mercy promised in Christ.
Philipp Melanchthon
In the bonds of Death He lay Who for our offense was slain But the Lord is risen today Christ hath brought us life again Wherefore let us all rejoice Singing loud with cheerful voice Hallelujah!
Martin Luther
Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection not in books alone but in every leaf in springtime.
Martin Luther
Human Salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
Martin Luther King
We must constantly build dykes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
Martin Luther King
Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.
Martin Luther
I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope self.
Martin Luther
The defects of a preacher are soon spied.
Martin Luther
Christian life consists of faith and charity.
Martin Luther
The fewer the words the better prayer.
Martin Luther
Music is the art of the prophets the only art that can calm the agitations of the soul it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.
Martin Luther
I never work better than when I am inspired by anger for when I am angry I can write pray and preach well for then my whole temperament is quickened my understanding sharpened and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.
Martin Luther
As the world is wearie of me so am I of it.
John Knox
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Martin Luther King
We must accept finite disappointment but we must never lose infinite hope.
Martin Luther King
Daily there have to be many troubles and trials in every house, city, and country. No station in life is free of suffering and pain, both from your own, like your wife or children or household help or subjects, and from the outside, from your neighbors and all sorts of accidental trouble.
Martin Luther
My wife and I said good-bye the next morning in a little sheltered place among the lumber on the wharf; she was one of your women who never like to do their crying before folks.She climbed on the pile of lumber and sat down, a little flushed and quivery, to watch us off. I remember seeing her there with the baby till we were well down the channel. I remember noticing the bay as it grew cleaner, and thinking that I would break off swearing; and I remember cursing Bob Smart like a pirate within an hour.("Kentucky's Ghost")
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
To an unbelieving person nothing renders service or work for good. He himself is in servitude to all things, and all things turned out for evil to him, because he uses all things in impious way for his own advantage, and not for the glory of God.
Martin Luther
It is neither right nor safe to go against my conscience.
Martin Luther
Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: do not drink, answer him: I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.
Martin Luther
Qui me amat, amet et canem meum. (Who loves me will love my dog also.)
Bernard of Clairvaux
the Church of Rome, formerly the most holy of all Churches, has become the most lawless den of thieves, the most shameless of all brothels, the very kingdom of sin, death, and hell; so that not even antichrist, if he were to come, could devise any addition to its wickedness.
Martin Luther
He [Christ] died for me. He made His righteousness mine and made my sin His own; and if He made my sin His own, then I do not have it, and I am free.
Martin Luther
Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God, your functional savior.
Martin Luther
The purpose of marriage is not to have pleasure and to be idle, but to procreate and bring up children, to support a household. This, of course, is a huge burden full of great cares and toils. But you have been created by God to be a husband or a wife that you may learn to bear these troubles. Those who have no love for children are... unworthy of being called men or women; for they despise the blessing of God, the creator and author of marriage.
Martin Luther
If then, Moses so distinctly announces that there is in us not only a faculty, but also a facility for keeping all commandments, why are we sweating so much? ... What need is there now of Christ or of Spirit? We have found a passage that asserts freedom of choice, but also distinctly teaches that the keeping of the commandments is easy.
Martin Luther
The dog is the most faithful of animals and would be much esteemed were it not so common. Our Lord God has made His greatest gifts the commonest.
Martin Luther
Love is not only pure joy, and delight, but also great and deep heaviness of heart and sorrow. But love too is full of joy and sweetness even in bitter sorrow, because it regards the misery and injury of others as its own. So also Christ was glowing with burning love in His last and greatest agony. According to St. Hilary, it was Christ's greatest joy that He endured the greatest woe. Thus God "giveth strength and power unto His people" (Ps. 68:15). While they experience the greatest sorrow, their hearts overflow with joy.
Martin Luther
To preach Christ is to feed the soul, to justify it, to set it free, and to save it, if it believes the preaching.
Martin Luther
Fight vigorously against the wolves, but on behalf of the sheep, not against the sheep. And this you may do by inveighing against the laws and lawgivers, and yet at the same time observing these laws with the weak, lest they be offended, until they shall themselves recognize the tyranny, and understand their own liberty.
Martin Luther
If there is anything in us, it is not our own; it is a gift of God. But if it is a gift of God, then it is entirely a debt one owes to love, that is, to the law of Christ. And if it is a debt owed to love, then I must serve others with it, not myself.Thus my learning is not my own; it belongs to the unlearned and is the debt I owe them...My wisdom belongs to the foolish, my power to the oppressed. Thus my wealth belongs to the poor, my righteousness to the sinners...It is with all these qualities that we must stand before God and intervene on behalf of those who do not have them, as though clothed with someone else's garment...But even before men we must, with the same love, render them service against their detractors and those who are violent toward them; for this is what Christ did for us.
Martin Luther
Thus, dear friends, I have said it clearly enough, and I believe you ought to understand it and not make liberty a law...
Martin Luther
It is certainly true that reason is the most important and the highest rank among all things and, in comparison with other things of this life, the best and something divine. It is the inventor and mentor of all the arts, medicines, laws, and of whatever wisdom, power, virtue, and glory men possess in this life.
Martin Luther
I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam.
Muhammad Abduh
There is no person on earth so bad that he does not have something about him that is praiseworthy. Why is it, then, that we leave the good out of sight and feast our eyes on the unclean things? It is as though we enjoyed only looking at – if you will pardon the expression – a man's behind.
Martin Luther
‎What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and work flow.
Martin Luther
I am bound by conscience and the word of God. Therefore I can and will recant nothing, because to act against one's conscience is neither safe nor salutary. Here I stad. I can do no ether. So help me God.
Martin Luther
True humility does not know that it is humble. If it did, it would be proud from the contemplation of so fine a virtue.
Martin Luther
Strange, though I am saved from sin, I am not saved from sinning.
Martin Luther
...so unbelief alone commits sin..Hence Christ calls unbelief the only sin.
Martin Luther
He who sleeps does not sin.
Martin Luther
The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and must take matters into our own hands
Martin Luther
In his life Christ is an example showingus how to live in his death he is a sacrifice satisfying our sins in his resurrection a conqueror in his ascension a king in his intercession a high priest.
Martin Luther
Many of those who are humiliated are not humble. Some react to humiliation with anger, others with patience, and others with freedom. The first are culpable, the next harmless, the last just.
Bernard of Clairvaux
They don't take the Bible as a general thing, sailors don't; though I will say that I never saw the man at sea who didn't give it the credit of being an uncommon good yarn.("Kentucky's Ghost")
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
There is talk of a new astrologer [Nicolaus Copernicus] who wants to prove that the earth moves and goes around instead of the sky, the sun, the moon, just as if somebody were moving in a carriage or ship might hold that he was sitting still and at rest while the earth and the trees walked and moved. But that is how things are nowadays: when a man wishes to be clever he must . . . invent something special, and the way he does it must needs be the best! The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down. However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth.[Martin Luther stating his objection to heliocentrism due to his Scripture's geocentrism]
Martin Luther
ON GETTING DRUNK:"Those who are Christians are to see to it that they are grateful for grace and redemption and conduct themselves modestly, moderately, and soberly, so that one does not go on living the swinish life that goes on in the filthy world...." "...In my time it was considered a great shame among the nobility [drunkenness]. Now they are worse than the citizens and peasants;...We preach, but who stops it? Those who should stop it do it themselves; the princes even more. Therefore Germany is a land of hogs and a filthy people which debauches its body and its life. If you were going to paint it, you would have to paint a pig. "This gluttony is inundating us like an ocean....We are the laughingstock of all the other countries, who look upon us as filthy pigs;...It is possible to tolerate a little elevation, when a man takes a drink or two too much after working hard and when he is feeling low. This must be called a frolic. But to sit day and night, pouring it in and pouring it out again, is piggish. This is not a human way of living. not to say Christian, but rather a pig's life." - Martin Luther
Martin Luther
Everything bad in the Old Testament (and there's a lot) is there to point out our sin, while everything good in the Old Testament is there to point us to our Savior.
Martin Luther
I am much afraid that the universities will prove to be the great gates of hell, unless they diligently labour in explaining the Holy Scriptures, and engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not unceasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt.
Martin Luther
The testimony of scripture is so plain that to add anything were superfluous, were it not that the world is almost now come to that blindness, that whatsoever pleases not the princes and the multitude, the same is rejected as doctrine newly forged, and is condemned for heresy.
John Knox
The soul can do without everything except the word of God, without which none at all of its wants are provided for.
Martin Luther
Christ want to point this out and to warn His followers that in the world everyone should live as though he were alone and should consider His Word and preaching as the very greatest thing on earth, thinking this way to himself: “I see my neighbor and the whole city, and yes the whole world, living differently. All those who are great or noble or rich, the princes and the lords, are allied with it. Nevertheless I have an ally who is greater than all of them, namely, Christ and His Word. When I am all alone, therefore, I am still not alone. Because I have the Word of God, I have Christ with me, together with all the dear angels and all the saints since the beginning of the world. Actually there is a bigger crowd and a more glorious procession surrounding me than there could be in the whole world now. Only I cannot see it with my eyes, and I have to watch and bear the offense of having so many people forsake me or live and act in opposition to me.
Martin Luther
Bring a mirror and let a dirty face recognize itself.
Bernard of Clairvaux
Thus every matter, if it is to be done well, calls for the attention of the whole person.
Martin Luther
The world has come to such a state that one can no longer find anyone who does good.
Girolamo Savonarola
If God were willing to sell His grace, we would accept it more quickly and gladly than when He offers it for nothing.
Martin Luther
Satan, the god of all dissension stirs up daily new sects. And last of all which of all others I should have foreseen or once suspected. He has raised up a sect such as teach that men should not be terrified by the Law but gently exhorted by the preaching of the grace of Christ.
Martin Luther
So far from being able to answer for my sins, I cannot even answer for my righteousness!
Bernard of Clairvaux
This grace of God is a very great, strong, mighty and active thing. It does not lie asleep in the soul. Grace hears, leads, drives, draws, changes, works all in man, and lets itself be distinctly felt and experienced. It is hidden, but its works are evident.
Martin Luther