(Fragment.)
Luther instructs him how to read the Holy Scriptures and to test Luther's and the Church Fathers' writings against them.
From the Börner collection in Leipzig in Schütze, Vol. III, p. 256 and in De Wette-Seidemann, Vol. VI, p. 424.
Read the Old Testament two or three times from beginning to end as carefully as possible. Stay longer with the prophets. Then you can turn to your New Testament. Consider how the New Testament agrees with the Old; see also how all the prophets testify of Christ. Then return to the epistles of Paul. Make the epistle to the Romans together with the epistle to the Galatians completely familiar to you and consider them carefully. In these two epistles you can explain all the questions that may arise, or otherwise darker passages of Scripture. Save the Epistle to the Hebrews for the explanation of the various ceremonies, allegories, models, silhouettes and sacrificial customs of the Old Testament. You shall read our books with a scripture of the adversaries, which you have procured, and compare both with the scripture, and test them against the scripture as against a touchstone. After you have read the
Letters without any time determination. No. 3329 to 3332.
When you have well recognized the meaning of both, imagine that the latter is your adversary, and write against him for your practice, for yourself alone (privatim). From dialectics, rhetoric and the other beautiful sciences you can embellish your writings. Afterwards, when your heart is well fortified by the divine word, it will not hurt to add the old fathers and to leaf through the decretals of the pope, and pay attention to how they (since they neglected the doctrine of justification and mixed themselves in worldly affairs) gradually and unnoticedly deviated from the faith. Mart. Luther, D.
No. 3330.