Martin Luther

Quotes From

On the Bondage of the Will (1525)

• When something stands in broad daylight, and a mass of evidence for it is in broad daylight also, it does not matter whether there is any evidence for it in the dark.#
• Let wretched men abjure that blasphemous perversity which would blame the darkness of their own hearts on the plain scriptures of God!#
• What fear may we suppose there was among the Jews, when the Gospel freed all men from the law of Moses? What scope did not this great liberty appear to give to evil men? Yet the Gospel was not, on that account, taken away; instead, the godly were told not to use their liberty to indulge the flesh, and the ungodly were left to their own devices.#
• God preached works to the end that sin and death may be taken away, and we may be saved. But God hidden in majesty neither deplores nor takes away death, but works life and death, and all in all; nor has he set bounds to himself by his word, but has kept himself free over all things.#
• This is what we come to when we seek to measure God and make excuses for him by human reason . . . we are overwhelmed by the glory . . . and instead of a single excuse we vomit out a thousand blasphemies.#
• By the omnipotence of God I mean, not the power by which he omits to do many things that he could do, but the active power by which he mightily works all in all.#
• There is no easier or commoner failing in dealing with the Scriptures than to bring together diverse passages as if they were alike.#