of the tabernacle: and among the rest that my expositions of the prophet Jonah should receive this honour from your eloquent pen... I doubt not that my book will be so improved in your hands, as henceforth to pass for your's and not mine but in that I shall rejoice, and take such a theft for an act of great kindness. I do not flatter you, and secretly gratify myself in speaking thus: but my zeal consumes me, when I see how the whole world disregards, nay opposes and execrates the great theme of the gospel, while the eloquence of all nations is employed in celebrating what is mere dross and dung in comparison with it. "But I hope that the employment will be profitable to yourself, and that Jonas in translating Jonas will find his own reward. I trust the work will tend to heal the wound you have received in the too early death of a fourth son! You will hear my Jonas saying to you, Jonas why weepest thou Behold me plunged for three days and three nights in the depth of the sea, in the belly of hell. Thy grief is deep, but not like mine....Yet remember the compassion of God, which passeth all understanding. He would not suffer me to perish, but brought me up again safe, and triumphant over both the sea and the sea-monster.'.... "So my Jonas will speak to you, and much better than I can do. I commend you therefore to one another, that, as you agree in name, so you may be united in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. That this may be your portion and mine for ever, may He grant, who is our peace and consolation-Jesus Christ, blessed for ever! Amen."-May, 1530.1 1 Strobel. No. 99. It may have been observed that no use has been made in this volume, nor any, I believe, in Dr. Milner's volumes, of the work which passes under the above title. No doubt it may contain many amusing and many good things; but it has been the fruitful source of those ab surd stories and extravagant sayings, which have greatly lowered the character of Luther with many superficial readers: and the reason for not here making any use of it shall be assigned by bishop Atterbury. "It is a book," he says, "not received into the canon by the learned. It depends purely on the credit of one Van Sparr, that tells a blind story of his finding it in the ruins of an old house, many years after Luther, and Aurifaber the pretended compiler, were dead: but, should it be genuine, yet no fair adversary would urge loose table talk against a man in controversy, and build serious inferences upon what perhaps was spoken but in jest. It may serve to divert a reader, but is not fit to convince him."1 It is the more hard that Luther should have suffered from a publication of this kind, when he had thus addressed his friends, concerning such even of his written papers, as might by any means have come into their hands. "I entreat them, in the name of Christ, not to be ready to publish such things, either while I live or after my death. From the times in which I live, and 1 Answer to Considerations, pp. 26, 55, 78. from the part I am obliged to act, it cannot but be that many strange thoughts should bubble up in my mind by night and by day, which the impossibility of otherwise retaining them obliges me to note down upon paper, like a confused chaos, in the fewest words possible, for future use. But to publish such things, however obtained, would be both ungrateful and inhuman.... Not that they are wicked and bad, but because many of them, when I am able coolly to reflect upon them, appear to myself foolish and to be rejected. Wherefore I again entreat that no one of my friends will publish any thing of mine without my concurrence. If he does, he must take the whole responsibility upon himself. Charity and justice require it.” 1 1 Seck. in Indice tertio: anno 1537. INDEX. A ABSOLUTION, on a form of used at Nuremberg, 324. Advent of Christ, Luther's desire of it, 153. Agricola, John Islebius, attended the diet of Augsburg, 7, 327: Aichstadt, Hutten, Bp. of, 435, 438. Ales, a Scotch divine patronized by the Elector of Brandenburg, Alexandria and Egypt, a custom of the church there, 307. Alliance, the Holy, among the Roman Catholics, 204. Altieri, Baldassare, his correspondence with Luther from Ambrose, St. a saying of, 515. Amsdorf, superintendant of Madgeburg, 177: made bishop of Anabaptists of Munster, 184. Anecdote, of Luther and Bucer, 216: of Luther, 403. Annaberg, Protestant preaching there, 255. Antididagma, published by the clergy against the Abp. of Co- Antinomianism, taught by Agricola, and opposed by Luther, Apocrypha, the, Ecolampadius on, 148: pronounced canonical Apology for the Confession of Augsburg, Melancthon's, 80: Aristotle, his philosophy, 530. Arminius, found it difficult to reject the doctrine of final Articles, Henry VIII's law of the six, 186, 187. Assurance, of pardon, effects of, 42: distinguished from faith, 45. Atterbury, Bishop, his defence of Luther, 307: his application Augsburg, diet of, (1530,) Dr. Milner's remarks upon, 1: the Christopher von Stadion, Bishop of, 7, 27: how Augustine, St., sayings of, 515, 518: Luther's observations on Augustus of Saxony, 346: made Bishop of Mersburg, 399: Aurifaber, John, chaplain to the Elector of Saxony, 477, 563. B Baden, Philip, marquis of, deserts Protestantism, 132. Barnes, Dr. Robert, martyr, 331. Barnimus, Duke of Pomerania, 178, 406. Basnage, his sentiment on resistance in defence of religion, 108: on Luther's alleged intercourse with Satan, 550. Bavaria, Dukes of, zealous Roman Catholics, 6: they join the Bayer, Christian, Chancellor of Saxony, 22. Bayle, on Luther, 215, 550: on Seckendorf, pref. xiii. Bellay, William de, of Langey, 188, 444: Cardinal, 192. |