# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1861_S338
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

338 Report on the Law.

end, if man had of himself the right love, he would now have no need of
the grace of God. For this same love, when it is right, loves both itself
and the neighbor; for the law, too, wants no other love than exactly this
one. But as has been said, the law already presupposes that man loves
himself; and Christ, when he says, Matt. 7:12, "All that ye would that men
should do to you," shows clearly that the will and love of self is already
present in them, and commands nothing at all in that regard — as you
yourself see. Therefore it seems to me, as I understand it, that the law
speaks of the perverted love with which a man forgets his neighbor and
seeks only the things useful and advantageous to himself; whereas that
love is only "rightly ordered" when a man forgets himself and serves his
neighbor alone. This is also shown by the members of the body, among which
each serves the other, even at its own peril: the hand fights for the head
and takes the blow upon itself; the feet go into filth and mud and water,
because they thereby save the whole body. But under this order of love —
which Christ, by this commandment, wanted altogether to lay to rest — the
inclination and affection toward one's own advantage are also very
dangerously nourished. I therefore wish everyone admonished to guard
himself against such heathen teachings and sayings as: Proximus esto tibi,
that is, you shall be your own nearest neighbor; and: Every man for
himself, God for all; and the like — for they are false and perverse, as
the commandment shows." (See Luther's Works, Walch ed. IX, 297–305.)

So Luther writes further, in his fuller exposition of the Letter to the
Galatians of the year 1535: "Therefore people go very far astray who
think they understand this commandment very well: Love thy neighbor as
thyself. It is true that it is imprinted on the hearts of us all, and we
know by nature that everyone ought to do to his neighbor what he would
have done to himself. But it does not follow from this that we understand
it rightly; otherwise we would prove it also by deed, and would prefer
love above all other works. But since the work-righteous think so highly
and greatly of the sham works they have themselves chosen, apart from —
indeed against — God's command, such as looking sour, hanging the head,
living unmarried, eating bread and water, dwelling in the wilderness,
wearing gray habits, and the like, it is a sure sign that they hold love
— which is nevertheless the sun among all works — cheap, indeed as nothing
at all. So incomprehensible and immoderate a thing is the blindness of
human reason, that it can rightly understand or judge neither the
teaching of faith nor even the works that God has commanded and takes
pleasure in... Do you, then, want to know how you should love your
neighbor, and have a clear and certain example of it? Then consider
carefully how dearly you love yourself; you will surely find that you