The Refining Process

…We in our day must endure stiff-necked sectarians, who vex and trouble us, just as our predecessors were troubled by heretics in their day and the prophets were troubled by false prophets in their own day. For the world must be and wants to be deceived, and the elect must be tested, tried, and refined, all to the praise and honor of God in eternity. Amen.

Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, American Edition, ed. Christopher Boyd Brown. vol. 60, Prefaces II, (Saint Louis: CPH, 2011) 335.