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I fear God, yet am not afraid of Him; His mercies make me ashamed of my sins, before His judgments afraid thereof. These are the forced and secondary methods of His wisdom, which He useth but as the last remedy, and upon provocation; a course rather to deter the wicked, than incite the virtuous to His worship.
Thirdly, If thou do slight these, or those convictions that may be set upon thy heart by reading of this discourse, or hearing of any other good man preach the Word of God sincerely, thou wilt have the stifling of these or those convictions to account and answer for at the day of judgment; not only thy sins, that are commonly committed by thee in thy calling and common discourse, but thou shalt be called to a reckoning for slighting convictions, disregarding of convictions, which God useth as a special means to make poor sinners see their lost condition and the need of a Saviour.
Ammonius too bade us not be afraid, for he would not reply to any of our discourses; and Trypho likewise urging me to propose something, I said: To demonstrate that the ivy is cold is not so proper a task for me as Trypho, for he often useth coolers and binders; but that proposition, that wine in which ivy berries have been is more inebriating, is not true; for that disturbance which it raiseth in those that drink it is not so properly called drunkenness as alienation of mind or madness, such as hyoscyamus and a thousand other things that set men beside themselves usually produce.
He is a warrant of woe in the execution of his fury, and in his best temper a doubt of grace. He is a dispeopler of his kingdom and a prey to his enemies, an undelightful friend and a tormentor of himself. He knows no God, but makes an idol of Nature, and useth reason but to the ruin of sense. His care is but his will, his pleasure but his ease, his exercise but sin, and his delight but inhuman.
In this manner ordered God the business, that Kings, Princes, yea, and the Pope himself, fell from the Emperor, and that we joined with him, which was a great wonder of God's providence, in that he whom the devil intended to use against us, even the same, God taketh, maketh and useth for us. Oh, wonder, said Luther, above all wonders! Of the Assembly of the Princes at Brunswick, 1531.
Now, as to redemption from the law, and from those other things from which we are, and are to be redeemed with power; do but consider the different language which the Holy Ghost useth, with reference to our redemption from each.
"Art there at last, love?" said he, in a soft voice, as he saw, with palpitating heart, the pretty but arch face of the bewitching heiress of all the wealth of the old burgher lord peering through the aperture. "What, in the name of him who got his wings in the lap of Venus, and useth them to this hour as cleverly as doth our pretty messenger of Spring, hath kept thee, wench?"
Lastly, let princes, against all events, not be without some great person, one or rather more, of military valor, near unto them, for the repressing of seditions in their beginnings. For without that, there useth to be more trepidation in court upon the first breaking out of troubles, than were fit.
"Why her Majesty useth me thus strangely, I know not," he observed. "To some she saith that she meant not I should have gone from the court; to some she saith, she may not admit me, nor give me contentment. I shall dispose myself to enjoy God's favour, and shall do nothing to deserve her disfavour. And if I be suffered to be a stranger to her affairs, I shall have a quieter life."
One of the objections is taken from the supposed unsuitableness of the means. Considered in itself this made an objection. It is said the all-wise God would not have appointed them that to appoint a company of poor, despised, ignorant fishermen, as prime ministers of a religion, is sufficient to prove that it is not from God, who always useth the best means and most suitable instruments.
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