# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1861_S359
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Report on the Law 359

there is none, he takes away from man grace, salvation, virtue, and God
with all his goods; and all this without cause, and also falsely and
deceitfully, whereby he denies and utterly damns God. Conversely, because
he makes a good work and divine service out of murder and injustice, he
sets up the devil and lies in the place of God and commits the highest
idolatry that can be, and thereby ruins body and soul; he murders the
body through hunger and the soul through conscience; he makes of God a
devil and of the devil a god; of heaven a hell and of hell a heaven; of
sin righteousness, and of righteousness sin. This is, I think, what it
means to become perverted, and for the sharpest right to become the
sharpest wrong.. Now all manner of laws should be given, ordained, and
kept for this reason: not that they be kept for their own sake, nor for
the sake of the works, but solely for the exercise of love — which is
also the true meaning of the Law, as St. Paul says here: He that loveth
another hath fulfilled the Law; so that, wherever it is seen that a law
does not serve the neighbor's benefit but rather his harm, it should be
set aside. For one and the same law can be useful to the neighbor at one
time and harmful at another.. So it goes when one wants to govern people
according to the law and the work, and not the laws according to the
people — just as a carter directs the road according to the wagon. Now it
is true that the road often fits itself nicely to the wagon and runs
straight ahead; but at other times it runs crooked and uneven, and there
he will truly want the wagon bent and made uneven to match the road.
Likewise it must indeed be that people conform themselves to the law and
the work where they can and where it is good for them. But again, where
it is harmful to them, the law should truly bend and give way, and the
ruler should be wise enough to give room to love and to set aside the
works and the laws." (Luther's Works, Erlangen ed. VIII, 52–60; Walch's
ed. XII, 488–497.)

Further, Luther writes in his treatise "On Monastic Vows" of the year
1522: "The Lord Christ has now made this example thoroughly into a
general rule, in that he draws a conclusion from two like cases: David
broke the law that forbade the eating of the holy bread; therefore, in
time of need, one may break the Sabbath and every law (Mark 2:25 f.). For
if this consequence did not hold, then Christ, too, would not have
rightly proven that the Sabbath may be broken, by that same example of
another law which David broke when he ate of the showbread. So it is
clear here that the divine commandments always make exception for the
case of need — not only need of the soul, but also of the body and of
goods. For from the same reason by which one law may be broken, by that
same reason may every other law also be broken — that is, be interpreted
and explained according to its true meaning, as to how far it binds or
does not bind. For the saying, John 10:35, nevertheless remains true,
that Scripture cannot