Eccl. 2:3. And I thought in my heart that I would abstain from wine and govern my heart wisely and comprehend prudence, till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under the sun during all the days of their life.
…. Therefore I shall undertake a rigid and austere way of life, one of total abstinence and strictness.” …. This passage is like a thunderbolt against all the regulations and the religiosity of the monks, by which they subject to themselves and to their own planning such things as do not belong to them. This is not to say that abstinence is evil; what is evil is to seek it out by one’s own planning and to bind oneself to it as something necessary. For time, things, and places are gifts of God, which they nevertheless want to take captive through their rules and prescriptions. Besides, all they get out of it is sorrow and misery, while they torture the flesh and torment themselves in vain. For this is what the Carthusians prescribe: One is not to eat meat even if one were dying of hunger. The worst part of it is that they look for sanctity in such things, as though the devil himself could not be a saint this way, since, after all, he neither drinks wine nor dresses in purple, etc.
For Love. CONFIRM, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the hearts of Thy children, and strengthen them with the power of Thy grace, that they may both be devout in prayer to Thee and sincere in love for each other; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen (Oremus, 1925, p.35).
Therefore he is saying: “All things would be good for me, whether abstaining or eating and drinking, but they become very evil when I add my own ideas.” God has not prescribed place or time, food or abstinence, but in our foolishness we prescribe: “Now I shall eat meat, now I shall not eat it.” God Himself says: “When you have it, eat; if you do not have it, abstain.” Therefore if you want to be abstinent, wait for the counsel of the Lord. He is able to cast you into prison, into hunger, into infirmity, and the like. There you should be abstinent, for there you have a rule that has been prescribed for you not by yourself but by God Himself. But now by your own ideas you make up a form of abstinence that is contrary to the will of God. These outstanding despisers of the world, moreover, everywhere abstain from things in such a way that they never lack for anything. They act in such a way as never to have to abstain. In short, just as they are puffed up above God through their own righteousness, so they are puffed up above the creation through their own ordinances. (Luther’s Works, v.15 p.32-33)