Luther explained the simile of Psalm 1, which compares the righteous man to a tree that “yields fruit it in its season,” with another simile, a comparison of Christian life to a loving marriage: “When a husband and wife really love one another, have pleasure in each other, and thoroughly believe in their love,” Luther asked, “who teaches them how they are to behave one to another, what they are to do or not to do, say or not to say, what they are to think? Confidence alone teaches them all this, and even more than is necessary. For such a man there is no distinction in works. He does the great and the important as gladly as the small and unimportant . . . . He does them all in a glad, peaceful, and a confident heart, and is an absolutely willing companion to the woman.”
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