Luther on Scripture Interpretation.
He says, "That which I have so often insisted on elsewhere, I here once more repeat; viz., That the christian should direct his first efforts towards understanding the literal sense (as it is called) of scripture, which alone is the substance of faith and of christian theology. . . . The allegorical sense is commonly uncertain, and by no means safe to build our faith upon; for it usually depends on human opinion and conjecture only, on which if a man lean, he will find it no better than the Egyptian reed. Therefore Origen, Jerome, and similar of the fathers are to be avoided with the whole of that Alexandrian School, which, according to Eusebius and Jerome, formerly abounded in this species of interpretation." For later writers unhappily following their too much praised and prevailing example, it has come to pass that men make just what they please of the Scriptures, until some accommodate the word of God to the most extreme absurdities.