“Third. Direct the examination also to your outward life and ask yourself whether you are showing love to your neighbor and are serving him. If you do not find these evidences of faith within yourself, if you are living the same as before, still packed full of unfaithfulness, hatred, envy, wrath, and unbelief, then, dear friend, by all means stay away from the sacrament until you have become a different person. Don’t let yourself be driven to it by crowd or custom or the ordinance of the pope. Heavens, if this idea were really put across, it would mean that where thousands come to the sacrament now, scarcely hundreds would come. In this way we would diminish the abominable sins with which the pope has flooded the world through his hellish ordinance, and so we would at last become again a group of real Christians, whereas at present we are almost completely pagan and only Christian in name. Then we should be able to do what is now impossible for us, namely, separate from our number those in whom we see by their works that they have neither faith nor love.

Alas, we are still far from Jerusalem; we have scarcely begun to break out of our captivity in Babylon, and yet we want to act as if we had already arrived at home. Everyone wants to be called Christian, and we have to permit it; but then they do not want to exercise faith and love. Creating sects does not help matters. So there is nothing else to do but to preach the gospel and to keep people away from the sacrament and all external rites until they feel and show themselves to be Christians and of their own accord press forward first to faith, to love, and then to the external sacrament and things like that” (Luther’s Works, v.36 p.264-265).

“First, since Satan through the ordinance of the pope has thrown the sacrament before swine [Matt. 7:6] by compelling everybody to partake of the sacrament at Easter, whether they believe or not, whether they love or not, and since he has also concealed from them the words of the sacrament, on which faith must depend and nourish itself, let us therefore labor first to raise the sacrament above the level of the swine. We do this, however, only as we dissuade and keep the people from it by teaching and exhortation, so that no one goes to the sacrament out of compulsion by, or obedience to, the pope’s ordinance. For the sacrament does not admit of people being compelled or driven to it. Rather, instructed by the gospel, people should request and insist upon it of their own accord, because they are driven by the hunger of their believing hearts.

Second. Now anyone who thinks he has this kind of hunger should see to it that he does not deceive himself. He should make sure that it is no mere desire of the human flesh that prompts him. He should examine his faith and determine whether it is genuine, as St. Paul admonishes in I Cor. 11[:28]: ‘Let a man examine himself.’ This examination, however, covers your whole life. You must find within yourself a smiting conscience which is weighed down with a sense of sin and longs for the grace of God, a conscience that stands in dread of death or hell and longs for strength, a conscience that seeks and takes the sacrament, firmly relying on Christ’s word, in order to receive such grace and strength and help. For as I have said, this sacrament requires a hungry, thirsty, oppressed, and anxious soul, that comes of its own accord, conscious of its own need and thirst, with utter confidence, and without regard to the pope’s laws or lawlessness. That is the proof of faith; it is an inward matter” (Luther’s Works, v.36 p.263-264).

“In like manner you may deal harshly with the liars and hardened tyrants, and act boldly in opposition to their teachings and their works, for they will not listen. But the simple people, whom they have bound with the ropes of their teaching and whose lives are endangered, you must treat quite differently. You must with caution and gentleness undo the teachings of men, providing them a defense and explanation, and in this way gradually set them free. This is what St. Paul did when, in defiance of all the Jews, he would not permit Titus to be circumcised [Gal. 2:3], and yet he circumcised Timothy [Acts 16:3]. You must treat dogs and swine differently from men; wolves and lions differently from the weak sheep. With wolves you cannot be too severe; with weak sheep you cannot be too gentle. Living as we do among the papists today, we must act as though we were living among heathen. Indeed, they are heathen seven times over; we should therefore, as St. Peter teaches [I Pet. 2:12], maintain good conduct among the heathen, that they may not speak any evil of us truthfully, as they would like to do. They are delighted when they hear that you make a boast of this teaching and give offense to timid souls. This affords them a pretext for denouncing the whole teaching as offensive and harmful, for they have no other way of demolishing it; they have to admit that it is true.

God grant us all that we may practice what we preach, putting our words into deeds. There are many among us who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ [Matt. 7:21], and praise the teaching, but the doing and following are simply not there” (Luther’s Works, v.45 p. 73).

“You should rather tell them your reasons with fear and gentleness (as St. Peter teaches [I Pet. 3:15]), saying something like this, ‘My dear man, fasting and the eating of eggs, meat, and fish are matters of such a nature that salvation does not depend upon them. Both the doing of these things and the leaving of them undone may be for good or for evil; faith alone saves,’ etc., or, ‘The mass would be a good thing if it were properly celebrated,’ etc. In this way they would come to you and listen, and ultimately learn what you know. But now that you are so insolent, priding yourself on your superior knowledge, acting like the Pharisee in the gospel [Luke 18:11–12], and basing your pride on the fact that they do not even know that which you know, you fall under the judgment of St. Paul in Romans 14[:15], “You are no longer walking in love,’ you are despising your neighbor, whom you ought to be serving with gentleness and fear.

Take an analogous case: If an enemy had tied a rope around your brother’s neck, endangering his life, and you like a fool were to fly into a rage at rope and enemy and frantically pull the rope toward you or slash at it with a knife, you would most likely either strangle or stab your brother, doing him more harm than either rope or enemy. If you really want to help your brother, this is what you must do: You may slash away at the enemy as vigorously as you please, but the rope you must handle gently and with caution until you get it off his neck, lest you strangle your brother” (Luther’s Works, v.45 p. 72-73).

“On the other hand, there are some who have heretofore not yet heard the gospel, and who would be willing to learn if someone would tell it to them, or who are so weak that they cannot readily grasp it. These you should not bully or beat up, but instruct in a kindly and gentle manner, giving them a defense and explanation. If they are unable to grasp it at once, bear with them for a time. St. Paul says of them in Romans 15, ‘“Welcome him who is weak in faith’; and Peter says in I Peter 3[:15], “Always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who desires a defense and explanation of the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and fear.” Here you see that we are to give instruction in our faith gently and in the fear of God to any man who desires or needs it.

If you only want to parade your vast learning before such people; if you pounce upon them with the bare assertion that their way of praying, fasting, and celebrating mass is wrong; …and if you do not, in addition, with gentleness and fear explain to them the why and wherefore—then these simple souls cannot help but think that you are a proud, impudent, and wicked man, and that is just what you are! They will get the impression that men are not to pray or do good, that the mass is nothing, and so on. You will be the cause of their error, and of their taking offense; you will be to blame. That is how it comes about that they disparage and belittle the holy gospel, and imagine that you have been taught some monstrous things. What do you gain by thus troubling your neighbor and hindering the gospel? When your inconsiderate ardor has cooled, they will say, ‘Ei, I will stick to my beliefs,’ and they will shut their hearts against the genuine truth” (Luther’s Works, v.45 p. 71-72).

“In the second place, if you want to handle the gospel in a Christian way, you must take into account the people to whom you are speaking. These are of two kinds. On the one hand, there are those who are hardened and will not listen, and who, in addition, deceive and poison others with their lying mouths. Such are the pope, Eck, Emser, and some of our bishops, priests, and monks. You should not deal with them at all, but hold to the injunction of Christ in Matthew 7[:6], ‘Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and the dogs turn to attack you.’ Let them remain dogs and swine; they are a lost cause anyway. And Solomon says, ‘Where there is no hearing, pour not out words.’  But when you see that these same liars pour their lies and poison into other people, then you should boldly take the offensive and fight against them, just as Paul in Acts 13[:10–11] attacked Elymas with hard and sharp words, and as Christ called the Pharisees a ‘brood of vipers’ [Matt. 23:33]. You should do this, not for their sake, for they will not listen, but for the sake of those whom they are poisoning. Just so does St. Paul command Titus to rebuke sharply such empty talkers and deceivers of souls [Titus 1:10–13]” (Luther’s Works, v.45 p. 71).

“From ‘A Sincere Admonition…,’ 1522, Luther writes, ‘In the first place, I ask that men make no reference to my name; let them call themselves Christians, not Lutherans.  What is Luther? After all, the teaching is not mine [John 7:16]. Neither was I crucified for anyone [I Cor. 1:13]. St. Paul, in I Corinthians 3, would not allow the Christians to call themselves Pauline or Petrine, but Christian. How then should I—poor stinking maggot-fodder that I am—come to have men call the children of Christ by my wretched name? Not so, my dear friends; let us abolish all party names and call ourselves Christians, after him whose teaching we hold. The papists deservedly have a party name, because they are not content with the teaching and name of Christ, but want to be papist as well. Let them be papist then, since the pope is their master. I neither am nor want to be anyone’s master. I hold, together with the universal church, the one universal teaching of Christ, who is our only master’” (Luther’s Works, v.45 p. 70).

“From, ‘Receiving Both Kinds in the Sacrament,’ later in 1522, He writes, ‘True, by any consideration of body or soul you should never say: I am Lutheran, or Papist. For neither of them died for you, or is your master. Christ alone died for you, he alone is your master, and you should confess yourself a Christian. But if you are convinced that Luther’s teaching is in accord with the gospel and that the pope’s is not, then you should not discard Luther so completely, lest with him you discard also his teaching, which you nevertheless recognize as Christ’s teaching. You should rather say: Whether Luther is a rascal or a saint I do not care; his teaching is not his, but Christ’s’” (Luther’s Works, v.36, p.265).

“Get busy now; spread the holy gospel, and help others spread it; teach, speak, write, and preach that man-made laws are nothing…rather tell them that a Christian life consists of faith and love….

But in this very matter of inculcating the word and driving out the laws of men I must also admonish those who are causing wholesale defections from and denunciations of the holy gospel. There are some who, when they have read a page or two or have heard a sermon, go at it slam bang, and do no more than overwhelm others with reproach and find fault with them and their practices as being unevangelical, without stopping to consider that many of them are plain and simple folk who would soon learn the truth if it were told them. This also I have taught no one to do, and St. Paul has strictly forbidden it [Rom. 14:1–15:1, I Cor. 4:5–6]. Their only motive in doing it is the desire to come up with something new, and to be regarded as good Lutherans. But they are perverting the holy gospel to make it serve their own pride. You will never bring the gospel into the hearts of men in that way. You are much more apt to frighten them away from it, and then you will have to bear the awful responsibility of having driven them away from the truth. You fool, that’s not the way; listen, and take some advice” (Luther’s Works, v.45 p. 68-70).