For here we must do what God places within our reach and of his own accord commands us to do. Therefore, if we hold official and authoritative position, we must be strict and rigid, be wrathful and punish, etc. Here he says nothing about these, but lets them move on in their office and rank, as he has ordered it but he is speaking of the mere, single, natural person, what each is to do for himself, as a man, towards others. That means then a divine person, holding a divine office, and moves clothed with its own dignity, and is not called simply Jack or Nicholas, but a prince of Saxony, or father and master. But when we have now been born, God makes of you another person, makes you a child, me a father one a master, another a servant this one a prince, that one a citizen, etc. One, in which we are created and born, according to which we are all alike, man, woman, child, young, old, etc. For here we have two different persons in one man. He who is known as Jack or Martin is a very different man from him who is called Elector, or Doctor, or Preacher. For I have elsewhere often said that we must make a wide difference between these two, office and person. Now, what does it mean to be meek? Here you must, in the first place, be again reminded, that Christ is not speaking at all about the government and its official authority for it does not belong to this to be meek (sanftmuthig, as we use the word Sanftmuth in German) for it holds the sword, that it may punish the wicked, and it has a wrath and vengeance that are called the wrath and vengeance of God but he is speaking only of individual persons, how each one is to conduct himself towards others, aside from official position and control as father and mother, if they do not live as father and mother towards their children, nor perform their official duty as father and mother, that is, towards those who are not called father or mother, as neighbors and others. For he teaches here that they are to remain and dwell in the land and have to do with earthly possessions as we shall hear bye and bye. Therefore, he himself adds here the gloss, that to be spiritually poor, of which he spoke before, does not mean to be a beggar, or to throw away money and goods. But he does not mean to say here that to own the land and have all kinds of possessions here upon earth, means, that every one is to possess a whole country else God would have to create more worlds but he refers to the blessings that God bestows upon each one, that he gives to one wife, children, cattle, house and home, and what is implied in this, that he may abide in the land (where he lives) and have control of his worldly goods, as the scriptures usually speak, and it is repeatedly said in Psalm thirty-seven: “those that wait upon the Lord shall inherit the earth ” also, “such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth,” etc. For, if one is to possess the land and worldly goods, he cannot be poor. But how does this agree together? to be poor and to possess the land? It seems to me that the preacher has forgotten how he began. For as he there promised the kingdom of heaven and an eternal inheritance, so he here adds a promise of this present life and possessions here upon earth. This beatitude follows admirably upon the first when he said: Blessed are the poor in spirit, etc. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
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