Select Works Tr by H Cole - 3 Author:Martin Luther Volume: 3 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1826 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a m... more »illion books for free. Excerpt: But, most illustrious Prince, neither of these motives answer my design. For, in the first place, I am aware that none of the productions which proceed from me, deserve a patron : and so far, it is a happiness that I know my deficiency. And, even if I could produce that which should be worthy of the sanction of a patron's name, yet I should by no means be anxious to put it under a patron's protection. Nay, as soon as I learnt from the Holy Scriptures, how terror-filled and perilous a matter it was to preach publicly in the church of God, and to speak in the midst of those whom you know will one day be your judges, and that in the presence of God the beholder of all things, in the sight of angels, and in the sight and hearing of all creatures, there was nothing that I so much desired as silence; wishing also, that a sponge could deface all that ever I had in my poor foolish way published abroad. For it is a momentous and awe-striking matter to render an account unto God even for every idle word. Nor does he now keep me in the ministry of the Word, but by an overruled obedience to a will above my own, that is, his divine will: for, as to my own will, it always shrunk from it, nor is it fully reconciled unto it to this hour. And, indeed, what fame, whaf: praise, what eternalizing of a name, can your most illustrious Highness hope from me ? being yourself such a Prince, who, not only by all those other endowments that exalt the Prince, but also by a distinguished love of learning and learned men, have procured to yourself that name and glory, that, instead of wanting an Appion to immortalize you...« less