Works of Martin Luther, with Introductions and Notes · Martin Luther
FOOTNOTES
"A man is not reckoned a member of the Church according to his body, but according to his soul, nay, according to his faith...It is plain that the Church can be classed with a temporal community as little as spirits with bodies. Whosoever would not go astray should therefore hold fast to this, that the Church is a spiritual assembly of souls in one faith, that no one is reckoned a Christian for his body's sake; that the true, real, essential, Church is a spiritual thing, and not anything external or outward." "All those who make the Christian communion a material and outward thing, like other communities, are in reality Jews, who wait for their Messiah to establish an external kingdom at a certain definite place, namely Jerusalem; and so sacrifice the faith, which alone makes the kingdom of Christ a thing spiritual or of the heart." In this and the following notes, for brevity's sake, various quotations are summarized and connected. [24] "For the teachings of human experience and (Deut. xii:8) reason are far below the divine law. The Scriptures expressly forbid us to follow our own reason, Deut. xii: 'Ye shall not do...every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes'; for human reason ever strives against the law (Gen. vi:5) of God. Therefore the attempt to establish or defend divine order with human reason, unless that reason has previously been established and enlightened by faith, is just as futile, as if I would throw a light upon the sun with a lightless lantern, or rest a rock upon a reed. For Isaiah vii makes reason subject to faith, when he says (vii:9): 'Except ye believe, ye shall not have understanding or reason.' He does not say, Except ye have reason, ye shall not believe. Therefore this scribe would better not have put forth a claim to establish the faith and the divine law by mere reason."
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