Proof Against It

In the latter pages of Richard Adams' Watership Down (which I just completed with my 7th and 8th Grade literature class), I came across this reflective statement:

"Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it." (p. 465)

I wonder if that might also be the rationale for why some people also like horror movies.

Not Feeling So Well?

If you take some sort of dark comfort at the thought that at least you don't have a condition a bad as others, of if you ascribe to the old apothegm, "Misery loves company," you might take heart at knowing how much Luther suffered with his illnesses.

Martin Brecht's biography of Luther is superb (and not just in describing morbid details). The following description comes in his third of three volumes on Luther Martin Luther: The Preservation of the Church (1532-1546). This is from pages 185-186.:

It is possible that Luther might have been more actively involved at the assembly and might have had his position accepted had he been healthy. This time it was not heart problems, but kidney stones that became evident on 8 February when he passed a stone and experienced bleeding. In the following days he could participate in the discussions only sporadically.

On Sunday, 18 February, he was well enough to preach. He freely applied the gospel of Jesus' temptation by the devil (Matt. 4:1-11) to the church that had been tempted by external persecution, heretical perversion of the Bible, and now by the anti-Christian papacy and its mass. Only Christ himself could put an end to this.

Later that same day he suffered extreme pains. An enema administered by the landgrave's personal physician understandably not only did not help but caused persistent diarrhea that weakened the patient. Melanchthon was quite concerned about this inept treatment.

On 19 February Luther was unable to urinate, and this persisted for eight days. Although there were several physicians of the princes in Schmalkalden, at Luther's request Dr. George Sturtz was summoned from Erfurt with suitable medications on 20 February. Previously, too, they had obtained medicine from Erfurt. . . .

The surgeon (Steinschneider) from Waltershausen was summoned. The elector's surgeon had a golden instrument fabricated for an operation. Luther had to suffer even more at the hands of the physicians who were helpless in his case, and, when all was said and done, he would rather have died.

"They gave me as much to drink as if I had been a big ox." They offered him broth made from almonds. They also tried, from the Dreckapotheke (excrement pharmacy), remedies made from garlic and raw manure.

From 25 February onward, Luther's condition grew increasingly critical. Melanchthon could not hold back his tears while visiting him. Their previously substantial differences were now obviously irrelevant. Luther was prepared to accept his fate from God's hand. However he had an urgent wish to he in the territory of Electoral Saxony. Although hardly in condition to be moved, he wanted to leave Schmalkalden. To his consternation, Melanchthon postponed the departure for a day because, for astrological reasons, he thought the new moon was an unfavorable date for this undertaking.

Before Luther's departure on 26 February the elector visited the patient and wished him God's grace and healing for the sake of the Word. Luther advised him to pray against the devil, the real adversary. The papal legate would be happy about Luther's death—in fact, the status of Luther's health was an important political consideration on all sides—but with Luther's death the pope would also lose an important person who was praying for him and he would not escape the evil to come. Luther thanked his sovereign for all that he had done for the sake of the gospel, and exhorted him to continue to work for it.

John Frederick stated his concern that God would take away "his precious Word" along with Luther. Luther, however, mentioned the many theologians who had taken it to heart and understood it very well. The anxious elector took this as an opportunity to admonish all those present to preserve the pure Word.

Luther also feared that after his death the gospel would be threatened by controversies. Interestingly, in this context he asked whether all the theologians had unanimously signed the articles, which, as mentioned above, was not the case. Melanchthon was able to tell him only that all of them, even Blaurer, had signed the Augsburg Confession and the Wittenberg Concords.

Before leaving, the elector assured Luther that he did not need to be concerned about his wife and children: "For your wife shall be my wife, and your children shall be my children." Nevertheless, Luther was afraid that the city governor, Hans Metzsch, who was at odds with him, would take revenge upon his family. Amsdorf should look after Katy. The patient's pains were so severe that he feared he was losing his mind. He felt miserable and had to vomit. Like Stephen, he felt he was being "stoned." But he held fast: "God still remains wise and Christ, my Lord, my wisdom and God." They should stop praying for him in the churches. God had now been "prayed, importuned, and cried to" enough. God would do the right thing. If Luther surrendered to the devilish pain, Christ would take revenge upon him. In this trust he commended his soul to God.

For the trip a copper basin was specially prepared so that towels could be heated and applied to the patient while traveling. When Luther entered the wagon, he made the sign of the cross and wished those standing around: "The Lord fill you with his benediction and with hatred of the pope." In his deathly illness Luther was aware of the significance of this final unreconciled word. The legate apparently assumed that Luther was already dead and had been taken away secretly. He therefore sent his servant to find out if this were so, but Schlaginhaufen prevented him from seeing Luther: "You will not see Luther in eternity." Bugenhagen, Spalatin, Myconius, Schlaginhaufen, and Dr. Sturtz accompanied the patient. Two men walked beside the wagon in order to moderate the discomfort of the trip on the poor road. Possibly, it was this jolting that saved Luther's life. The trip was excruciating, however.

The Sum of the Christian Life

Here's a piece of Luther's Work which I had not read before but was glad to have come across it. It is his Sermon on the Sum of the Christian Life (1532) found in the American Edition of his works, vol. 51, beginning at page 256. It's a nice one to read in conjunction with his treatise The Freedom of a Christian. when considering sanctification in the life of Christ's people.

Now, as for him who will neither heed this nor be moved to hold God’s Word in honor and esteem and gladly hear and learn it whenever he can, I do not know how to advise him, for I neither can nor will drag anybody in by the hair.

Anybody who despises it, let him go on despising it and remain the pot-bellied sow that he is until the day when God will slaughter him and prepare a roast for the devil in the eternal fires of hell. For such a person cannot be a good man, nor is it a human sin, but rather the devil’s obstinacy, when a man can so despise that for which God himself has appointed a place, person, time, and day, and besides admonishes and pleads with him so solemnly through his command and promise, and lays all this at our doorstep free of charge.

This is something for which you ought to run to the ends of the world, something you cannot pay for with any gold or silver. And yet it is such an easy service that it costs you no labor or work, no money or goods, only to lend your ears to hear, or your mouth to speak and read, and surely there is no easier work than this. For even though this may bring with it the peril that you will have to bear the cross and suffer for it, yet the work in itself is easier than even the easiest of labors.

If you can sit day and night in a tavern or somewhere else with good companions, gossiping, talking, singing, and bawling, and not grow tired or feel that it is work, then you can also sit in church for an hour and listen in the services of God and his will. What would you do if he commanded you to carry stones or to go on a pilgrimage or imposed some other heavy work upon you, as was imposed upon us formerly, when we willingly performed everything we were told to do and into the bargain were fleeced of money, goods, and body with silly lies and frauds?

But now we have the damnable devil, who makes the people so blind and so surfeited and sated that we do not realize what a treasure we have in the dear Word and go on living so rudely that we become like wild beasts. Let us take it to heart then and remember, whenever we preach, read, or hear God’s Word, whether it be in the churches or at home through father, mother, master, or mistress, and gladly believe that wherever we can obtain it we are in the right, high, holy service of God, which pleases him beyond all measure.

Thus you will be warmed and stirred to love hearing it all the more and God will also grant that it bear fruit, more than anybody can tell. For the Word never goes out without bringing forth much fruit whenever it is earnestly heard, without your being the better for it. Even though you do not see it now, in time it will appear. But it would take too long to tell all the fruits now, nor, indeed, can they all be numbered.

It's Number 53, Actually

11/3/1956

The Misanthrope

Moliere, anyone? The explanation of this painting by Pieter Bruegel is as follows:

The Dutch inscription reads: 'Because the world is perfidious, I am going into mourning'. The moral of the painting is that such a relinquishment of the world is not possible: one must face up to the world's difficulties, not abandon responsibility for them. The hooded misanthrope is being robbed by the small figure in a glass ball, a symbol of vanity. His action shows how impossible it is to give up the world. The misanthrope is also walking unawares towards the mantraps set for him by the world. He cannot renounce it as he would wish, and he is contrasted with the shepherd in the background who guards his sheep and who is more virtuous than the misanthrope because of his simple, honourable performance of his duties, his sense of responsibility towards his charges.