Martin Luther's Writings

16. It follows, then, that baptism makes all sufferings, and especially death, profitable and helpful, so that they simply have to serve baptism in the doing of its work, that is, in the slaying of sin. It cannot be otherwise. For he who would fulfil the work and purpose of his baptism and be rid of sin, must die. Sin, however, does not like to die, and for this reason it makes death so bitter and so horrible. Such is the grace and power of God that sin, which has brought death, is driven out again by its very own work, namely, by death itself.

You find many people who wish to live in order that they may become righteous and who say that they would like to be righteous. Now there is no shorter way or manner than through baptism and the work of baptism, which is suffering and death. Yet so long as they are not willing to take this way, it is a sign that they do not properly intend or know how to become righteous. Therefore God has instituted many estates in life in which men are to learn to exercise themselves and to suffer. To some he has commanded the estate of matrimony, to others the estate of the clergy, to others the estate of temporal rule, and to all he has commanded that they shall toil and labor to kill the flesh and accustom it to death. Because for all who are baptized, their baptism has made the repose, ease, and prosperity of this life a very poison and a hindrance to its work. For in the easy life no one learns to suffer, to die with gladness, to get rid of sin, and to live in harmony with baptism. Instead there grows only love of this life and horror of eternal life, fear of death and unwillingness to blot out sin.

17. Consider now the lives of men. Many there are who fast, pray, go on pilgrimage, and exercise themselves in such things, thinking thereby only to heap up merit and to sit down in the high places of heaven; they no longer learn to slay their evil vices. But fasting and all such exercises should be aimed at holding down the old Adam, the sinful nature, and at accustoming it to do without all that is pleasing for this life, and thus preparing it more and more each day for death, so that the work and purpose of baptism may be fulfilled. And all these exercises and toils are to be measured not by their number or their greatness, but by the demands of baptism. That is to say, everyone is to take upon himself so much of these works as is good and profitable for the suppressing of his sinful nature and for the preparation of it for death. He is to increase or diminish these works according as he sees sin increasing or diminishing. As it is, people go their way and take upon themselves this, that, and the other task, doing now this, now that, according to the appearance or reputation of the work. Afterward they let it drop just as quickly and thus become altogether inconstant, till in the end they amount to nothing. Indeed some of them so rack their brains over the whole business, and so abuse nature, that they are useless both to themselves and to others.

All this is the fruit of that doctrine with which we have been so infatuated as to think that after repentance or baptism we are without sin and that our good works are to be heaped up for their own sake or as a "satisfaction" for sins already done, but notfor the blotting out of sin as such. This is encouraged by those preachers who preach unwisely the legends and deeds of the blessed saints and hold them up as examples for all. The ignorant easily fall for these things, and effect their own destruction out of the examples of the saints. God has given every saint a special way and a special grace for living according to his baptism. But baptism and its significance God has set as a common standard for everyone. Each of us is to examine himself according to his station in life and is to find what is the best way for him to fulfil the work and purpose of his baptism, namely, to slay sin and to die in order that Christ's burden may thus grow light and easy [Matt. 11:30] and not be carried with worry and care. Solomon has this to say of it, "The toil of a fool only wearies him, because he does not know the way to the city" [Eccles. 10:15]. For even as they are worried who wish to go to the city and cannot find their way, so it is with these men also; all their life and labor is a burden to them, and yet accomplishes nothing.