ness such as I have not frequently met
with before." (1656.)

In his charge against Luther, Agricola had said that it was dangerous to
preach the Law without the Gospel, because it was a ministry of death
(_ministerium mortis_). Luther answered in his _Report_ to Brueck:
"Behold now what the mad fool does. God has given His Law for the very
purpose that it should bite, cut, strike, kill, and sacrifice the old
man. For it should terrify and punish the proud ignorant, secure Old
Adam and show him his sin and death, so that, being humiliated, he may
despair of himself, and thus become desirous of grace, as St. Paul says:
'The strength of sin is the Law; the sting of death is sin,'[1 Cor. 15,
56.] For this reason he also calls it _bonam, iustam, sanctam_--good,
just, holy. Again, Jeremiah [23, 29]: 'My Word is like a hammer that
breaketh the rock to pieces.' Again: '_Ego ignis consumens_, etc.--I am
a consuming fire,' Ps. 9, 21 [20]: '_Constitue legislatorem super eos,
ut sciant gentes, se esse homines, non deos, nec Deo similes_--Put them
in fear, O Lord, that the nations may know themselves to be but men.'
Thus St. Paul does Rom. 1 and 2 and 3 making all the world sinners by
the Law, casting them under the wrath of God, and entirely killing them
before God. But here our dear Master Grickel appears on the scene and
invents a new theology out of his own mad and reckless fool's head and
teaches: One must not kill and reprove the people, _i.e._, one must not
preach the Law. Here he himself confesses publicly in his suit [against
Luther] that he has condemned and prohibited the preaching of the Law."
(St. L. 20, 1657.)

The _Report_ continues: "Since, now, the little angry devil who rides
Master Grickel will not tolerate the Law, _i.e., mortificantem,
irascentem, accusantem, terrentem, occidentem legem_,--the mortifying,
raging, accusing, terrifying, killing Law,--it is quite evident what he
intends to do through Master Grickel's folly (for he nevertheless wishes
to be praised as preaching the Law after and under the Gospel, etc.),
_viz._, to hide original sin and to teach the Law no further than
against future actual sins, for such is the manner of his entire Postil;
even as the Turks, Jews, philosophers, and Papists teach who regard our
nature as sound; but Master Grickel does not see that it is just this
which his little spirit [devil] aims at by his bragging and boasting,
that he, too, is preaching the Law.... Thus Christ