A06516:61
A right comfortable treatise containing fourteen points of consolation for them that labour and…A right comfortable treatise containing fourteene pointes of consolation for them that labor and…
A right comfortable treatise containing fourteen points of consolation for them that labour and are laden: Written by D. Martin Luther to Prince Frederick Duke of Saxony, he being sore sick, thereby to comfort him in the time of his great distress. Englished by W. Gace.A right comfortable treatise containing fourteene pointes of consolation for them that labor and are laden: VVritten by D. Martin Luther to Prince Friderik Duke of Saxonie, he being sore sicke, thereby to comfort him in the time of his great distresse. Englished by W. Gace.
London: printed by Thomas Vautrollier, 1578
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
For if by the touching of his most pure flesh he hath sanctified all waters to baptism, ⟨p. 35⟩how much more by the touching of the same his most pure flesh and blood, hath he sanctified all death, all sufferings, all injuries, all slanders, all ignominy to the baptism of the spirit or blood? as he saith of the same baptism of suffering Luke 12: I must be baptised with a baptism, & how am I grieved till it be ended? Thou seest how he is disquieted, how he is grieved, how he thirsteth to sanctify & make amiable, passions & death. For he saw that we were terrified with passions, he saw that we did greatly fear & dread death. Therefore as a most loving shepherd, and faithful physician, minding to moderate this evil, he maketh hast & with grief desireth to die, & by suffering to commend the same unto us. 1So that the death of a Christian is to be counted like the brazen serpent that Moses set up, which in every respect resembled the form of a serpent, but was wholly without life, without motion, without venom, without stinging: so the righteous seem in the eyes of the unwise to die, but they are in peace. We are like to them that die, neither doth our death appear any otherwise then the death of others, notwithstanding it is an ⟨p. 36⟩other thing, for death is dead unto us. So also all our other sufferings are like the sufferings of others, howbeit in appearance only, but in very deed our sufferings are the beginnings of rest, as death is the beginning of life. And this is that which Christ saith John 8: If a man keep my word he shall never see death. Howe cometh it to pass that he shall never see it? because he dying, beginneth to live, so by reason of the life which he seeth, he can not see death. For here the night shineth as the day, for that the light of the life beginning is more clear, then of the death ending. These things are certain to all them that believe in Christ, but to them that do not believe they are otherwise.
For if by the touching of his most pure flesh he hath sanctified all waters to baptisme, ⟨p. 35⟩