CXXXV.
He that is now a prince, wants to be a king or an emperor. A man in love with a girl is ever casting about how he may come to marry her, and in his eyes there is none fairer than she; when he has got her, he is soon weary of her, and thinks another more fair, whom easily he might have had. The poor man thinks, had I but twenty pounds I should be rich enough; but when he has got that, he would have more. The heart is inconsistent in all things, as the heathen says: Virtutem praesentem odimus, sublatam ex oculis quaerimus invidi.
CXXXVI.
One knife cuts better than another; so, likewise, one that has learned languages and arts can better and more distinctly teach than another. But in that many of them, as Erasmus and others, are well versed in languages and arts, and yet err with great hurt, `tis as with the greater sort of weapons, which are made to kill: we must distinguish the thing from the abuse.
CXXXVII.
The wickedness of the enemies of the Word is not human, but altogether devilish. A human creature is wicked according to the manner and nature of mankind, and according as he is spoiled through original sin; but when he is possessed and driven of the devil, then begins the most bitter and cruel combat between him and the woman’s seed.
CXXXVIII.
The world will neither hold God for God, nor the devil for the devil. And if a man were left to himself, to do after his own kind and nature, he would willingly throw our Lord God out at the window; for the world regards God nothing at all, as the Psalm says: The wicked man saith in his heart, there is no God.
CXXXIX.
The god of the world is riches, pleasure, and pride, wherewith it abuses all the creatures and gifts of God.
CXL.
We have the nature and manner of all wild beasts in eating. The wolves eat sheep; we also. The foxes eat hens, geese, etc.; we also. The hawks and kites eat fowl and birds; we also. Pikes eat other fish; we also. With oxen, horse, and kine, we also eat salads, grass, etc.
CXLL.
I much wonder how the heathen could write such fair and excellent things about death, seeing it is so grisly and fearful! But when I remember the nature of the world, then I wonder nothing at all; for they saw great evil and wickedness flourishing among them, and in their rulers, which sorely grieved them, and they had nothing else to threaten and terrify their rulers with, but death.
Now, if the heathen so little regarded death, nay, so highly and honorable esteemed it, how much more so ought we Christians? For they, poor people, knew less than nothing of the life eternal, while we know and are instructed in it; yet, when we only speak of death, we are all affrighted.
The cause hereof is our sins; we live worse than the heathen, and therefore cannot justly complain, for the greater our sins, the more fearful is death. See those who have rejected God’s Word: when they are at the point of death, and are put in mind of the day of judgment, how fearfully do they tremble and shake.
CXLII.
Here, today, have I been pestered with the knaverises and lies of a baker, brought before me for using false weights, though such matters concern the magistrate rather than the divine. Yet if no one were to check the thefts of these bakers, we should have a fine state of things.
CXLIII.
There is not a more dangerous evil than a flattering, dissembling counsellor. While he talks, his advice has hands, and feet, but when it should be put in practice, it stands like a mule, which will not be spurred forward.