# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1861_S340
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

340 Report on the Law.

that he should act toward me, if I myself were poor and my neighbor rich.
What, then, would I want and consider fair and right to be done to me?
Not that the other should share everything he had with me and make
himself equal to me — for then a second poor man would come, and a third,
and a fourth, and so on, and there would be an endless dividing, and
neither human nor divine order could stand. Not only would such sayings
of God's Word then have lost their validity: "The rich and poor meet
together: the LORD is the maker of them all," Prov. 22:2; but even the
right established by the seventh, ninth, and tenth commandments would
thereby be abolished. Still less would I, in the case supposed, wish that
the rich man should give me his whole wealth and so make me rich and
himself poor. But this I would wish, and consider fitting: that the rich
man, according to my need and according to his means — with regard also
for other poor people who have the same, or perhaps a greater, need —
should help me; that he should either give and grant me alms where
needed, or lend to me, or give me work, or at least, through his
influence, procure work and thereby bread for me, or otherwise take up my
need. Just so, then, as I would wish to be treated were I myself standing
in my neighbor's place, so should I act toward him when I wish to love my
neighbor as myself. The same would hold if I were master and my neighbor
my servant. There love does not require that I make the servant into
something other than what he is by God's providence, or indeed that I
make myself the servant and him the master; but rather that I deal with
him as I would wish him to deal with me, were I standing in his place —
that is, were he my master and I his servant.

On this Luther writes in his "Admonition to the Pastors to Preach
against Usury," of the year 1540: "Christ teaches his Christians that
they are to deal with temporal goods in three ways, of which we have
often spoken, and which stand clearly in Matt. 5:42 and Luke 6:30. First,
that they should give gladly. Thou shalt give to everyone who asks of
thee. Second, they should gladly lend, or let people borrow from them; of
this Christ says, Luke 6:35: Lend, hoping for nothing again. Third, a
Christian should let even his cloak be taken along with his coat, of
which Matt. 5:40–41 speaks... Ah, you say, how can I give to everyone? It
would take (as they say) a rich merchant to support us all; it is
impossible even for the emperor to give to everyone — God alone can do
it, and no man... When our Lord thus says, Matt. 5:42, Thou shalt give to
everyone, "everyone" here does not mean that I am to give to all men, or
to all the needy on earth. He well knows that this is impossible. Rather,
he is speaking there against the Jewish understanding, which had before
it this text of the Law, v. 43: Thou shalt love thy friend and hate thy
enemy. From this they taught and held that one