ight way, you can do no better
than busying yourself with His Word and works, in which He has revealed
Himself and permits Himself to be heard and apprehended, to wit, how He
sets before you His Son Christ upon the cross. That is the work of your
redemption. There you can certainly apprehend God, and see that He does
not wish to condemn you on account of your sins if you believe, but to
give you eternal life, as Christ says: 'God so loved the world that He
gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not
perish, but have everlasting life,' (John 3, 16.) In this Christ, says
Paul, are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Col. 2, 3.)
And that will be more than enough for you to learn, study, and consider.
This lofty revelation of God will also make you marvel and will engender
a desire and love for God. It is a work which in this life you will
never finish studying; a work of which, as Peter says, even the angels
cannot see enough, but which they contemplate unceasingly with joy and
delight. (1 Pet. 1, 12.)"

"This I say that we may know how to instruct and direct those (if such
we should meet with) who are being afflicted and tormented by such
thoughts of the devil to tempt God, when he entices them to search the
devious ways of God outside of revelation, and to grope about trying to
fathom what God plans for them--whereby they are led into such doubt and
despair that they know not how they will survive. Such people must be
reminded of these words [Rom. 11], and be rebuked with them (as St. Paul
rebukes his Jews and wiseacres) for seeking to apprehend God with their
wisdom and to school Him, as His advisers and masters, and for dealing
with Him by themselves without means, and for giving Him so much that He
must requite them again. For nothing will come of it; He has carefully
built so high that you will not thus scale Him by your climbing. His
wisdom, counsel, and riches are so great that you will never be able to
fathom or to exhaust them. Therefore be glad that He permits you to know
and receive these things somewhat by revelation." (E. 9, 15 sqq.; St. L.
12, 641 sqq.)

In a sermon on 2 Pet. 1, 10, delivered in 1523 and published in 1524,
Luther said: "Here a limit [beyond which we may not go] has been set for
us how to treat of predestination. Many frivolous spirits, who have not
felt much of faith, tumble in, strike at the top, concerning themselves
first of all with this matter, an