Luther's Assurance

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1 Thessalonians 1:5-10

For our gospel came not to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance…

Look at him when he stood up for the glory of his God, was there ever such a dogmatist? "I believe it," he said, "and therefore I speak it." From that day when on Pilate's staircase he was trying to creep up and down the stairs to win heaven, when the sentence out of the musty folio came before him, "Justified by faith we have peace with God," that man was as sure that works could not save him as he was of his own existence. Now, if he had come out and said, "Gentleman, I have a theory to propound that may be correct; excuse my doing so," and so on, the Papacy had been dominant to this day. The man knew God had said it, and he felt float that was God's own way to his own soul, and he could not help dogmatizing with that glorious force of persuasion which soon laid his foes prostrate at his feet.

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