Martin Luthers Large Catechism | Page 5

so, we should not
only have nothing given us to eat, but be driven out, being baited with
dogs, and pelted with dung, because we not only need all this every day
as we need our daily bread but must also daily use it against the daily
and unabated attacks and lurking of the devil, the master of a thousand
arts.
And if this were not sufficient to admonish us to read the Catechism
daily, yet we should feel sufficiently constrained by the command of
God alone, who solemnly enjoins in Deut. 6, 6 ff. that we should
always meditate upon His precepts, sitting, walking, standing, Lying
down, and rising, and have them before our eyes and in our hands as a
constant mark and sign. Doubtless He did not so solemnly require and
enjoin this without a purpose; but because He knows our danger and
need, as well as the constant and furious assaults and temptations of
devils, He wishes to warn, equip, and preserve us against them, as with
a good armor against their fiery darts and with good medicine against
their evil infection and suggestion.
Oh, what mad, senseless fools are we that, while we must ever live and
dwell among such mighty enemies as the devils are, we nevertheless
despise our weapons and defense, and are too lazy to look at or think of
them! And what else are such supercilious, presumptuous saints, who
are unwilling to read and study the Catechism daily, doing than
esteeming themselves much more learned than God Himself with all
His saints, angels [patriarchs], prophets, apostles, and all Christians For
inasmuch as God Himself is not ashamed to teach these things daily, as
knowing nothing better to teach, and always keeps teaching the same
thing, and does not take up anything new or different, and all the saints
know nothing better or different to learn, and cannot finish learning this,
are we not the finest of all fellows to imagine, if we have once read or
heard it, that we know it all, and have no further need to read and learn,

but can finish learning in one hour what God Himself cannot finish
teaching, although He is engaged in teaching it from the beginning to
the end of the world, and all prophets, together with all saints, have
been occupied with learning it and have ever remained pupils, and must
continue to be such ?
For it needs must be that whoever knows the Ten Commandments
perfectly must know all the Scriptures, so that, in all affairs and cases,
he can advise, help, comfort, judge, and decide both spiritual and
temporal matters and is qualified to sit in judgment upon all doctrines,
estates, spirits, laws, and whatever else is in the world. And what,
indeed, is the entire Psalter but thoughts and exercises upon the First
Commandment? Now I know of a truth that such lazy paunches and
presumptuous spirits do not understand a single psalm, much less the
entire Holy Scriptures; and yet they pretend to know and despise the
Catechism, which is a compend and brief summary of all the Holy
Scriptures.
Therefore I again implore all Christians, especially pastors and
preachers, not to be doctors too soon, and imagine that they know
everything (for imagination and cloth unshrunk [and false weights] fall
far short of the measure), but that they daily exercise themselves well in
these studies and constantly treat them; moreover, that they guard with
all care and diligence against the poisonous infection of such security
and vain imagination, but steadily keep on reading, teaching, learning,
pondering, and meditating, and do not cease until they have made a test
and are sure that they have taught the devil to death and have become
more learned than God Himself and all His saints.
If they manifest such diligence, then I will promise them, and they shall
also perceive, what fruit they will obtain, and what excellent men God
will make of them, so that in due time they themselves will
acknowledge that the longer and the more they study the Catechism,
the less they know of it, and the more they find yet to learn; and then
only, as hungry and thirsty ones, will they truly relish that which now
they cannot endure because of great abundance and satiety. To this end
may God grant His grace! Amen.
SHORT PREFACE OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER.
This sermon is designed and undertaken that it might be an instruction
for children and the simple-minded. Hence of old it was called in Greek

catechism, i.e., instruction for children, what every Christian must
needs know, so that he who does not know this could not be numbered
with the Christians nor be admitted to any Sacrament, just as a
mechanic who does not understand