| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: announced] to condemn, to murder and to force us to idolatry.
Therefore we ought not here to kiss his feet, or to say: Thou
art my gracious lord, but as the angel in Zechariah 3, 2 said
to Satan: The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan.
THE THIRD PART OF THE ARTICLES.
Concerning the following articles we may [will be able to]
treat with learned and reasonable men, or among ourselves. The
Pope and his [the Papal] government do not care much about
these. For with them conscience is nothing, but money, [glory]
honors, power are [to them] everything.
I. Of Sin.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: He may have been a captain of a host,
Self-eloquent and ripe for prodigies,
Doomed here to swell by dangerous degrees,
And then give up the ghost.
Nahum's great grasshoppers were such as these,
Sun-scattered and soon lost.
Whatever the dark road he may have taken,
This man who stood on high
And faced alone the sky,
Whatever drove or lured or guided him, --
A vision answering a faith unshaken,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: good, but others have had quite the contrary notion. I believe that if the
God whom you are about to consult should appear to you, and, in
anticipation of your request, enquired whether you would be contented to
become tyrant of Athens, and if this seemed in your eyes a small and mean
thing, should add to it the dominion of all Hellas; and seeing that even
then you would not be satisfied unless you were ruler of the whole of
Europe, should promise, not only that, but, if you so desired, should
proclaim to all mankind in one and the same day that Alcibiades, son of
Cleinias, was tyrant:--in such a case, I imagine, you would depart full of
joy, as one who had obtained the greatest of goods.
ALCIBIADES: And not only I, Socrates, but any one else who should meet
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