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Untitled Article
Gospel by turns with other things , which seems to me a fault ; but I doubt whether there be not also a fault in * ; and yet St . Paul did it , and St . James . ' * They preached from what they saw , but was it not more gravely , more solemnly P ' ' We know not , Helena . Would we could have seen them resting in Gethsemane , or assembling for the evening meal !' Liese was much less disposed to demur to the propriety of Luther ' s ease and frankness when supper was over . The host led the conversation to the subject of monastic dedication , on which Martin eagerly enlarged , saying little to offend and much to astonish the released devotees , who sat afar off listening breathlessly to the energetic speech which reached them , and might possibly be partly designed for them . The scope of his argument was , that those who become devotees after a popish fashion evade in part the obligation to devotion ; yea , they evade the greater part , being devoted for themselves alone , and not for their brethren . No one could esteem a vow of devotion more than himself , who valued it all the more highly the more strictly he learned to keep it ; and it therefore grieved him to see how few of all who took this vow ( for every Christian took it ) were strict to observe it , and how those who evaded it most got the most praise . He had himself been one oi : these unprofitable devotees ; but God had given him time , just before he was shut into the outer darkness , to dig up his talent , and get it exchanged before Satan could overtake him .
' Whereupon / said Luther , ' he held back his claw and shrunk away , and now the gnashing of teeth is his and not mine ; for Christ has given wonderful increase unto my traffic , and every day more and more of the redeemed come to him , and say , This friar who used to beg , now buys souls faster than the Pope can chain them , and hide them in dungeons . " * ' And this it is to be a devotee , ' said Melancthon , c the Apostles were devotees . ' ' Yea , ' replied Luther . ' David thought it an honour to be a door-keeper to the tabernacle ; and it is a glory to St . Peter , — the true St . Peter ,, —to hold the keys that Christ gave him . But heaven has other doors , and there may be other keepers ; and I wot of one who praises God , as I said , that instead of being turned out himself , he stands to call others in with the cross in his hand for a rod , and the Gospel for a golden key of like workmanship with St . Peter ' s . ' * And is there a charge for every devotee ? ' Yea , for every one . God ' s work is not done in a day , though that day be eternity ; and none need be idle but they that have nothing to do but to lie and be tossed on the burning lake . If any love such idleness , let them go into a convent , which is ever built close upon tKeTlmnk . Well I wot I saw something of the dancing
Untitled Article
Liese j or , the Progress of Worshi p * 841
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1832, page 247, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1810/page/31/
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