Preface to the

reader: that he is the most miserable animal in the world, etc. Afterward, his entire life is considered and examined from the origin or conception and birth, until death, through all ages of man and through all stations of the world. And finally, the common punishments of the world—such as war, pestilence, times of famine, poverty, sickness, floods, thunder, earthquakes, danger from wild animals, etc.—are recounted. Something is also added regarding the cause of all misery and misfortune, and thus various sins and vices are treated until one finally arrives at the wearisome age and, lastly, death and the Final Judgment. There, all such misfortune will cease, and the Christians—who have recognized their own weakness here, considered from whence all misery comes, and have trustfully relied upon the merit of Christ against such things—will have their sorrow transformed into eternal joy.

We Christians can therefore, regardless of all that is cried out about this, know, conclude, and boast of something quite different: that man is not, as the heathens complain, the most miserable and sorrowful animal, but rather the most blessed creature in this world, whom God has so faithfully accepted and honored and blessed in so many ways. But theologians—thank GOD—are accustomed to speaking of this often, and to preaching it to us in such detail, that it requires no further reminder from me.