29 Psalms. *)
(1) Many strange things have happened in the Christian church, some comforting, some frightening, as the ancient histories and books testify. But in my opinion, if such a diligent scribe were in our time (as the Greeks and Romans were), and were to write out the stories that have occurred daily up to this point, one would certainly read and hear many a miracle. How then all here in this booklet an enormous piece of our time stories is described.
(2) For through much practice (praising God) I have come to believe that God is the Creator of heaven and earth. Which text now and always everyone understands too well, and has understood, and still will understand, except me alone, and some poor sinners and fools, as Moses,
David, Isaiah, and the like (among whom I must boast: Nos poma natamus, like the horse dung among the apples); they consider God to be a strange man, and say that His creation is a miraculous work, yet almost few see His miraculous works, although everyone sees His creation, and as St. Paul Apost. 17, 24. ff., everyone must grasp and feel it. But I am also one of the coarse fellows who do not yet understand such a creature of his, and (as I said) have hardly begun to believe such things, so that I, an old student, and now almost an experienced doctor, would like to be astonished how in our times people, as soon as they smell a book, know everything that the Holy Spirit knows. Nevertheless, they go there and see nothing that God does before our eyes every day, which is both terrible and comforting; nor do they turn their backs on anything that the Holy Spirit knows.
*Moiban reformed in Breslau and was a preacher there at St. Elisabeth's Church. He died in 1554, and his interpretation was published under the title: "Der. xxix. The Psalm of David on the power of God's voice in the lusts of the high rulers, together with several terrible storms, which occurred in the recent past in Slesia, interpreted and written. By D. Ambrosium Moibanum parish priest at Breslaw. With a preface by D. Martini Luther." At the end: "Printed at Wittenberg by Hans Lufft. M.D.XXXVI.." Quarto. In the collective editions, the preface is found: in the Wittenberg (1559), vol. XII, p. 363; in the Jena (1568s, vol. VI, p. 351; in the Altenburg, vol. VI, p. 909; in the Leipzig, vol. XII, p. 80; and in the Erlangen, vol. 63, p. 341. We give the text according to the Erlangen edition.
as if it were all an illusion. Through Adam's sin, human nature has fallen so deeply from God and His image, that is, from His knowledge, that we also do not recognize our own body and life, how wonderfully the same is created, given and preserved daily by God. What wonder is it, then, if we are hard, stiff, stone-blind, 1) and lumps against other His wondrous works, which He shows us apart from body and life in all creatures?
Summa, this life is no good. God is too despised and unknown; ingratitude is too great. Come on, death, and strangle all the bad boys. And Christ help us into his kingdom. Here is nothing good; the devil is abbot in the world, and his brothers are all at once brother intoxication, and is called: Curavimus Babylonem, et non sanatur It is baptism and Chresem lost on the dear, tender fruit.
4. yet God does not abandon His goodness, and always performs miracles upon miracles, sign upon sign, and some of them so mighty and tangible that such things have not been heard nor seen before, whether He could thereby humble us impenitent, proud hearts, as Jesus Sirach says: "perform new miracles, give new signs" etc. [For it is the same God who does miracles now, who did miracles before, and must always do miracles; without our having seen the former and ancient miracles (because we have not seen them, but have not seen them).
1) Erlanger: be stockbund. The Wittenbergers and the Jenaers have our reading.
We will respect what we read and hear) more than what we see and hear now. And our descendants (when the history of our time would come to them through books or otherwise) will esteem much higher what we are doing and suffering now than we ourselves, who are present and partly play the game ourselves. So God always remains despised when he is there, but when he is gone, people search and ask for him, but do not find him, as he says: "You will search for me and not find me", John 7:34.
In the end, this history, described in this book, will be the same. Many will read it, but it will soon be forgotten, whether it is true that such terrible signs, which were well forgotten in the times of the prophets and apostles, and should be remembered, if we were not so unrepentant, stubborn people (that God have mercy!). But if we do not turn to it, then he will not celebrate it either, and press on such signs, and show himself to be seven times harder and stronger (as 3 Mos. 26, 18) than we are. We will still have to die and leave heaven to him, if we make ourselves very miserable and miserable on earth. It says: Dedisti metuentibus te signum, ut liberentur, Ps. 60, 6. What does he ask for those who do not ask for him? He can well dispose of them 2) if they want to believe it. If they do not believe it, they will know it. Volenti non fit injuria.
2) Erlanger wrong: "ihr", because entsitzen is always constructed by Luther with the dative (Metz). Wittenberger: jnen; Jenaer: "ihn", i. e. ihnen.