The PuritanBoard - View Single Post - Prayer, Reading, Temptation, Meditation -- Luther

VirginiaHuguenot · #8 (**permalink**) 02-25-2008, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by moral necessity

Quote:

Originally Posted by VirginiaHuguenot

I have seen variations on a quote by Martin Luther that is cited often:

"Four things [sometimes said to be three things] make a divine [or a minister]: prayer, reading, temptation, and meditation."

Does anyone know the citation to Luther's quote and the exact original wording (or English translation thereof)?

Thanks!

It's not Luther, but from a sermon by Thomas Fuller, quoting who he calls "Master Perkins". Try the link below.

The Collected Sermons of Thomas ... - Google Book Search

Blessings!

Thanks. Notwithstanding Fuller's attribution of this quote to Perkins, I have found numerous citations to Luther from a wide range of respected theologians and historians, including George Whitfield, William Cunningham, Thomas Watson, John Flavel, Charles Bridges, Richard Gilpin, Benjamin Brook, and others.

I think the saying attributed to Luther may be derived from the preface to his commentary on Galatians where Luther says:

Quote:

“Wherefore I do admonish you, especially such as shall become teachers and guiders of consciences, and also every one apart, that ye exercise yourselves continually by study, by reading, by meditation of the word, and by prayer, that in time of temptation ye may be able to instruct and comfort both your own consciences and others, and to bring them from the law to grace, from active and working righteousness, to the passive and received righteousness: and to conclude, “from Moses to Christ”.

I have also found in Erasmus Middleton's Life of Luther (Evangelical Biography, Vol. 1, p. 233) the following statement:

Quote:

Luther frequently said, "That a preacher should take care not to bring three little sly dogs into his profession; viz. PRIDE, COVETOUSNESS, and ENVY." To which he added to preachers, "When you observe the people hear most attentively; be assured, they will return the more readily. Three things make a divine, meditation, prayer, and temptation. And three things are to be remembered by a minister; turn over and over the Bible; pray devoutly; and be never above learning. They are the best preachers for the common people, who speak in the meanest, lowest, humblest, and most simple style."