Good works (Theology); Lutheran Church -- Doctrines
Yet we must not despair if we are not soon rid of the temptation, nor
by any means imagine that we are free from it as long as we live, and
we must regard it only as an incentive and admonition to prayer,
fasting, watching, laboring, and to other exercises for the quenching
of the flesh, especially to the practice and exercise of faith in God.
For that chastity is not precious which is at ease, but that which is
at war with unchastity, and fights, and without ceasing drives out all
the poison with which the flesh and the evil spirit attack it. Thus St.
Peter says, "I beseech you, abstain from fleshly desires and lusts,
which war always against the soul." And St. Paul, Romans vi, "Ye shall
not obey the body in its lusts." In these and like passages it is shown
that no one is without evil lust; but that everyone shall and must
daily fight against it. But although this brings uneasiness and pain,
it is none the less a work that gives pleasure, in which we shall have
our comfort and satisfaction. For they who think they make an end of
temptation by yielding to it, only set themselves on fire the more; and
although for a time it is quiet, it comes again with more strength
another time, and finds the nature weaker than before.
Thou shalt not steal.
This Commandment also has a work, which embraces very many good works,
and is opposed to many vices, and is called in German Mildigkeit,
"benevolence;" which is a work ready to help and serve every one with
one's goods. And it fights not only against theft and robbery, but
against all stinting in temporal goods which men may practise toward
one another: such as greed, usury, overcharging and plating wares that
sell as solid, counterfeit wares, short measures and weights, and who
could tell all the ready, novel, clever tricks, which multiply daily in
every trade, by which every one seeks his own gain through the other's
loss, and forgets the rule which says: "What ye wish that others do to
you, that do ye also to them." If every one kept this rule before his
eyes in his trade, business, and dealings with his neighbor, he would
readily find how he ought to buy and sell, take and give, lend and give
for nothing, promise and keep his promise, and the like. And when we
consider the world in its doings, how greed controls all business, we
would not only find enough to do, if we would make an honorable living
before God, but also be overcome with dread and fear for this perilous,
miserable life, which is so exceedingly overburdened, entangled and
taken captive with cares of this temporal life and dishonest seeking of
gain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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