A88660:39
A word in season
A word in season: being the commentary of Dr. Martin Luther, on three selected Psalms: viz. the CXXIVth, CXXVth, and CXXIXth. With his commentary on some part of the fourth and fifth chapters of the First Epistle of St. Peter. Being of special use for the present times.
London: printed by George Larkin, 1685
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Verse 8. Our help is in the Name of the Lord who hath made both Heaven and Earth.
This is the Conclusion of Thanksgiving, containing a worthy sentence of great Comfort, that against Sin, the horror of Death,1 and other Dangers, there is no other help or safety but only the Name of the Lord. If that were not (saith he) we should fall into all manner of Sin, Blasphemy, Errors, and into all kind of Calamities. But our help is in the Name of the Lord, which preserveth our Faith and our Life against the Devil and the World. And as ye heard in the other Verses before, so he showeth in this verse also, that God suffereth his Saints to be tempted, and in their Tentation to fall into great Distress, as even now ready to be drowned and swallowed up presently with great floods of Water: yet notwithstanding this Comfort he showeth them, that he will not utterly forsake them. By the which Examples we may learn to know the Will of the Lord, and to seek our help and safety at his hands, which suffereth his People to be exercised in the Furnace of Egypt, not to their utter Destruction, but only to kill the old man with his vain hope and confidence which he hath in his own strength. This is the cause why God suffereth his People to be exercised. For it is not hearing, reading, talking, or teaching, nor Speculation only which maketh a Christian man, but Practice is that which specially is required in a true Christian, that is to say, the Cross, to pluck down the flesh and bring it to nothing; That man, despairing of his own strength, and seeing no succour in himself, should resign himself wholly unto the Lord, looking with Patience and Hope for help at his hand: for this is the Will of God. Neither must we imagine to our selves any other God then such an one as will help the afflicted and oppressed with Desperation and other Calamities. To know this Doctrine is one piece of the victory. For they that know it not when Tentation assaileth them, either do despair or seek other helps. Let us learn then out of this Psalm, that it is the Will of God to exercise his Saints with troubles and afflictions: Who suffereth great floods