What I mean by this, a familiar acquaintance with the more popular
parts of Luther's works, especially his "Commentaries," and the
delightful volume of his "Table Talk," would interpret for me better
than I can do for myself. But I do my best, when I say that no
Christian probationer, who is earnestly working out his salvation,
and experiences the conflict of the spirit with the evil and the
infirmity within him and around him, can find his own state brought
before him, and, as it were, antedated, in writings reverend even for
their antiquity and enduring permanence, and far more and more
abundantly consecrated by the reverence, love, and grateful
testimonies of good men, through the long succession of ages, in
every generation, and under all states of minds and circumstances of
fortune, that no man, I say, can recognise his own inward experiences
in such writings, and not find an objectiveness, a confirming and
assuring outwardness, and all the main characters of reality
reflected therefrom on the spirit, working in himself and in his own
thoughts, emotions, and aspirations, warring against sin and the
motions of sin.
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