hat known as the _Erlangen Edition_, in
which the German and Latin works are published in separate
series, 1826 ff. The text of the _Berlin Edition_ (Luthers Werke,
herausgegeben von Pfarrer D. Dr. Buchwald, etc., Berlin, C. A.
Schwetschke und Sohn, third edition, 1905, ten volumes) is
modernized, and where it has been used it has been carefully
compared with the more critical texts. The two editions of
Walch--the original, published 1740-1753, in twenty-four volumes,
at Halle, and the modern edition, known as the St. Louis, Mo.,
edition, 1880 ff.--are entirely German, and somewhat modernized.
For our purpose they could be used only as helps in the
interpretation, and not as standard texts for translation. A very
convenient and satisfactory critical text of selected treatises
is to be found in Otto Clemen, _Luthers Werke in Auswahl_, Bonn,
4 vols., of which two volumes appeared in 1912.

WORKS OF MARTIN LUTHER

SELECTIONS FROM LUTHER'S PREFACES TO HIS WORKS 1539 and 1545

I

LUTHER'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST PART OF HIS GERMAN WORKS[1]

EDITION OF 1539

I would gladly have seen all my books forgotten and destroyed; if
only for the reason that I am afraid of the example.[2] For I see
what benefit it has brought to the churches, that men have begun
to collect many books and great libraries, outside and alongside
of the Holy Scriptures; and have begun especially to scramble
together, without any distinction, all sorts of "Fathers,"
"Councils," and "Doctors." Not only has good time been wasted,
and the study of the Scriptures neglected; but the pure
understanding of the divine Word is lost, until at last the Bible
has come to lie forgotten in the dust under the bench.

Although it is both useful and necessary that the writings of
some of the Fathers and the decrees of some of the Councils
should be preserved as witnesses and records, nevertheless, I
think, _est modus in rebus_,[3] and it is no pity that the books of
many of the Fathers and Councils have, by God's grace, been lost.
If they had all remained, one could scarce go in or out for
books, and we should still have nothing better than we find in
the Holy Scriptures.

Then, too, it was our intention and our hope, when we began to
put the Bible into German, that there would be less writing, and
more studying and reading of the Scriptures. For all other
writings should point to the Scriptures, as John pointed to
Christ; when he said, "He must increase, b