Preface to the

Therefore, we must take this from the teaching of the Christian Church and God's Word, which not only instructs and teaches us correctly about the beginning and origin of this misery, misfortune, vice, frailty, and error in human life, but also, for us Christians—who have a different hope than the pagans—sets and shows us the true comfort against all this misfortune and finally against death itself. Now, the first cause of death and of many preceding misfortunes and the misery of the human race, about which the pagans could know nothing, is the disobedience of our first parents, through whom sin is planted upon us, and the wages and reward thereof, as the temporal punishment and death, and where one does not hold to faith in Christ, also the inheritance of eternal punishment and death. And from this comes such great darkness, so many great errors, weaknesses, and evil affects and desires, etc., in the human heart, with which we cause and heap up our misfortune daily.

The second cause is the devil, as the sworn enemy of God and man, who, after the terrible fall, always drives men to all kinds of evil desires and vices, and increases their fear and distress, according to the word of God in Paradise to the old serpent: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." For that is the same enmity, and these are the heel-bruises—namely, because Christ crushes his head, that is, his