blessing of his nearness to us. We have
his presence in our homes. He is with us at our board, by our
couch--anywhere we desire him. He offers us all assistance and grants
all we may ask. So gracious a guest should indeed receive our high
esteem. We ought to honor him while he is with us.

16. Well may we pray, as I have said. There is too much slumbering
everywhere in Germany. We cannot perceive how it is possible to
preserve the Gospel and fill the pulpits for ten years longer. To
such extent does wickedness rage in the world that blindness and
error must sweep it as before. And no one will be to blame but the
stupid bishops and princes, and those of us who esteem not the Word
of God.

INGRATITUDE WILL BE PUNISHED.

Alas, that I am compelled against my will to be a prophet of ill to
Germany. Yet it is not I, but the prayer of my Lord and your Lord;
for according to its teachings he will say: "You neglected my Word.
Unwilling to tolerate it, you persecuted and starved out its
messengers. Therefore I will withhold your daily bread and give
instead famine and war and murder, unto utter desolation; for you
wish to have it so. Then when you cry for forgiveness of sins and
deliverance from the evils come upon you, I will hear you as you
heard my Word, my entreaties. I will leave you in your misfortunes as
you left me and my Word."

17. In fact, no one for a moment thinks of how God has signally,
richly and graciously blessed us; how we are in possession of actual
paradise--yes, the entire kingdom of heaven--if we only recognized
the fact: and yet we shamefully, ungratefully and unreasonably reject
the kingdom; as if it were not enough for us to overstep the Ten
Commandments in our disobedience, but must even trample under foot
the mercy God offers in the Gospel. Then why should we be surprised
if he send down wrath upon us? What else is he to do but fulfill our
Gospel passage for today, which threatens every individual rejecter
and persecutor of God's Son and his servants, by whom we are invited
to the marriage--what else is God to do but send out a divine army of
servants to arrest the career of such murderers and to terminate
their existence? We are given a special illustration--an example to
the world--in the instance of the fate of Jerusalem, and in fact of
the entire Jewish nation. They sinned unceasingly against all God's
commandments, and when he proclaimed grace and offered forgiveness of
sins, they trample