writers, we all want to be critics.

I will most gladly leave to any one else the honor of greater
things, and not be at all ashamed to preach and to write in
German for the unlearned laymen. Although I too have little skill
in it, I believe that if we had hitherto done, and should
henceforth do more of it, Christendom would have reaped no small
advantage, and have been more benefited by this than by the
great, deep books and _quaestiones_[4], which are used only in
the schools, among the learned.

Then, too, I have never forced or begged any one to hear me, or
to read my sermons. I have freely ministered in the Church of
that which God has given me and which I owe the Church. Whoever
likes it not, may hear and read what others have to say. And if
they are not willing to be my debtors, it matters little. For me
it is enough, and even more than too much, that some laymen
condescend to read what I say. Even though there were nothing
else to urge me, it should be more than sufficient that I have
learned that your princely Grace is pleased with such German
books and is eager to receive instruction in Good Works and the
Faith, with which instruction it was my duty, humbly and with all
diligence to serve you.

Therefore, in dutiful humility I pray that your princely Grace
may accept this offering of mine with a gracious mind, until, if
God grant me time, I prepare a German exposition of the Faith in
its entirety. For at this time I have wished to show how in all
good works we should practice and make use of faith, and let
faith be the chief work. If God permit, I will treat at another
time of the Faith[5] itself--how we are daily to pray or recite
it.

I humbly commend myself herewith to your princely Grace,

Your Princely Grace's
Humble Chaplain,
Dr. Martin Luther.

From Wittenberg, March 39th, A.D. 1520.

THE TREATISE

[Sidenote: Faith and the Commandments]

I. We ought first to know that there are no good works except
those which God has commanded, even as there is no sin except
that which God has forbidden. Therefore whoever wishes to know
and to do good works needs nothing else than to know God's
commandments. Thus Christ says, Matthew xix, "If thou wilt enter
into life, keep the commandments." [Matt. 19:17] And when the
young man asks Him, Matthew xix, what he shall do that he may
inherit eternal life, Christ sets before him naught else but the
Ten Commandments. [Matt. 19:18 f.] A