Therefore, when some say good works are forbidden when we preach faith alone, it is as if I said to a sick man: If you had health, you would have the use of your limbs; but without health the works of your limbs are nothing and he wanted to infer that I had forbidden the works of all his limbs.
As when my little son John offendeth: if then I should not whip him, but call him to the table unto me, and give him sugar and plums, thereby, I should make him worse, yea should quite spoil him.
I only ask in all kindness that the man who wishes at this time to have my books will by no means let them be a hindrance to his own study of the Scriptures, but read them as I read the orders and the ordures of the pope and the books of the sophists.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.
Through faith we are restored to paradise and created anew. We have no need of works in order to be righteous; however, in order to avoid idleness and so that the body might be cared for an disciplined, works are done freely to please God.
We ought not to criticize, explain, or judge the Scriptures by our mere reason, but diligently, with prayer, meditate thereon, and seek their meaning.
The mad mob does not ask how it could be better, only that it be different. And when it then becomes worse, it must change again. Thus they get bees for flies, and at last hornets for bees.
The great unthankfulness, contempt of God’s word, and wilfulness of the world, make me fear that the divine light will soon cease to shine on man, for God’s word has ever had its certain course.
The Holy Scriptures surpass in efficaciousness all the arts and all the sciences of the philosophers and jurists; these, though good and necessary to life here below, are vain and of no effect as to what concerns the life eternal.
Men are so delving into the mysteries of things that today a boy of twenty knows more than twenty doctors formerly knew.
The fool will upset the whole science of astronomy, but as the Holy Scripture shows, it was the sun and not the earth which Joshua ordered to stand still.
We must not regard what or how the world esteems us, so we have the Word pure, and are certain of our doctrine.
It cannot, indeed, be denied, that a good man is more worthy of love than a bad one.
The fruit does not make the tree good or bad but the tree itself is what determines the nature of the fruit. In the same way, a person first must be good or bad before doing a good or bad work.
Oh! how great and glorious a thing it is to have before one the Word of God! With that we may at all times feel joyous and secure; we need never be in want of consolation, for we see before us, in all its brightness, the pure and right way.
Can he who understands not God’s word, understand God’s works?
A man must be able to affirm, I know for certain, that what I teach is the only Word of the high Majesty of God in heaven, his final conclusion and everlasting, unchangeable truth, and whatsoever concurs and agrees not with this doctrine, is altogether false, and spun by the devil.
Holy Christendom has, in my judgment, no better teacher after the apostles than St. Augustine.
I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict Scripture.
The Clergy is the greatest hindrance to faith.