Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1 · Martin Luther
A TRIBUTE OF A THEOLOGIAN OF ENGLAND.
"This invaluable and last production of the loved and revered reformer is a rich and precious mine of sacred wisdom; a vast treasury of deep research, of varied scriptural knowledge and of extensive Christian experience; in a word, it is a profound and comprehensive body of biblical, sacred-historical, doctrinal, spiritual and experimental divinity. So that a Christian who procures 'Luther on Galatians' and 'Luther on Genesis' possesses a complete treasury of rich, solid and saving theology. "Indeed it is impossible to convey by any command of description an idea of the extent, depth and richness of the mine of Christian knowledge and experience, which Luther's long hidden and unknown exposition of Genesis contains. The sins, trials, afflictions, faith, hope, deliverances, joys and duties of kings, princes, magistrates, husbands, wives, parents, children, masters and servants, rich and poor, are treated, as they occur in the lives of the patriarchs and prominent characters of the divine Record. "I hesitate not a moment to express my fullest persuasion that the Church of Christ will consider Luther's commentary on Genesis the deepest and most spiritual exposition of any book or portion of the holy Scriptures in existence; entering the most deeply and clearly into God's mind, and furnishing the most profound, varied and blessed edification for the family of heaven; and also the most useful, truthful, valuable and divine instruction for the world at large.
"As an expositor of the holy Scriptures Luther's comments contain a depth of investigation unpenetrated, a width of meditation unspanned, an extent of research unoccupied, a scriptural knowledge unpossessed, a variety of reflections unevinced, a multitude of wonders unrevealed, a number of beauties undiscovered, a value of instruction uncommunicated, a spirit of holiness unbreathed, a height of praise unascended, a depth of worship unfathomed, and a magnification of the Scriptures as the Word of God, unsurpassed and unequalled by any commentator, before or since his day." This divine and educator of the Church of England says Luther's Commentary on Genesis is "Doubtless the masterpiece of the greatest of the extra Bible saints and servants of the Most High." "What an ox-like labor, or as the reformer expresses it, 'what a ministerial sweat!'" "This greatest of all commentaries." Space will not permit more. In the second volume on Genesis we hope to say more on the place this commentary has held and ought to hold in English Protestantism.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.