I believe that we preachers of the Gospel at this time may boast in God our Lord with a clear conscience, as St. Paul boasts in 1 Cor. 1. boasts and says: "I thank my God always for the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus: That through him ye are enriched in all things, in all doctrine, and in all knowledge, even as the preaching of Christ is strengthened in you: so that ye have no lack of any gift, and wait only for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who also will keep you steadfast unto the end, that ye may be blameless unto the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. For God is faithful, by whom ye are called unto the fellowship of his Son JEsu Christ our Lord."
So we may also say to our Germans that God has abundantly given us His Word in the German language, and in all things so endowed that there is no lack in anything that serves eternal life and blessedness. And nothing more may we wait for, except that our dear Lord Jesus Christ should come and take us to Himself in heaven by His glorious and blessed future, and deliver us from the death of this flesh and from this wicked and shameful world, that is, from the kingdom of the devil, in which, as in our misery according to the flesh, we must suffer, groan and mourn.
For what more do we want to have or desire? First, we have the catechism
*) Cf. Walch XI Forewords 39 ff. and Erl. A. 7, 18 ff. D. Red.
clearly and powerfully preached, in which we may understand the commandments of God and everything that is to be done for us; in addition, the Lord's Prayer, in which we learn what prayer is and how or what we should ask. We have the symbol or confession of faith, what it is and does, gives and is able to do. We have the proper understanding and usage of holy baptism, the sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord, the keys, excommunication and absolution. We have a certain account of how each one should know and keep himself in his profession and station, whether spiritual or secular, high or low. We know what married life, widowhood and virginity are, how one may live and drive therein in a Christian manner.
Truly, we who are over fifty years old did not have such things forty or thirty years ago. And what we have had of it as a little spark, has been so besmirched, sullied and disgraced by pontifical and human sentences and monkish dreams, that it cannot be said nor counted. And yet countless amounts of money were given for such unbearable and damnable burdens and damage: the whole world was full of masses, soul masses, vigils, pilgrimages, indulgences, saintly service, monasticism, nunnery, popery, and abominable abominations in every corner, which did nothing but take money, and overloaded us with vain devil's burdens, and blinded our eyes, so that we should not know the blessed light of our Lord and Savior.
About this we have the Postillen, and especially this present one, so my good Lord and
friend D. Caspar Creuziger, in which the epistles and gospels are clearly and amusingly prepared for us throughout the year, and, as I might say, are chewed as a mother chews her child's porridge; in contrast, we had to hear almost all the legends of the saints in the past, and many of them were lies (as. St. George, Christophe, Anna, Barbara, Margaret, Catharine, Ursula etc.), the others almost all falsified, had to hear that also on the high feasts, Christmas, Easter and in the Passion, Pentecost, much cold, useless gossip was added, and honestly the bare text of the Gospel remained in use, with little understanding. Now, however, even the laity can understand both epistles and gospels abundantly, even read them at home themselves, much, much more, and take everything from them more purely than we could take from all sermons before. In addition, the legends of the saints have now been prepared and made useful for reading and preaching, and the Vitas patrum, which had been particularly muddied and ruined, can now be read in a useful way.
Thus the shameful, false, blasphemous prayer books, of which the world was full, have been eliminated, and instead pure prayers and good Christian songs have gone forth. And especially the Psalmist, the very finest and most delicious prayer book and hymnal, of which no theologian in our time could boast that he had understood some of the Psalms as well and thoroughly as the laity, both men and women, now understand them.
And, in summary, the whole Bible is so well summarized in German through printing that every householder, and whoever can read German, can easily produce his own, since there were many doctors of theology before, who had never read one all their lives, and some had never seen one, that we preachers (who want to faithfully carry out our ministry at this time) can easily preach enough to the people and teach them how they should be saved, even if one wanted to read it to them word for word from the books alone. If someone wants to be blind, unpunished and unlearned, we are well excused from his condemnation. We have done our part faithfully and
Let us therefore continue to be grateful to God, the Father of all mercies, so that the dear Word and such light may not again be taken away from us by God's wrath because of our sin and our ingratitude, and that after the cast out devil seven worse devils may not come, and everything become worse than it has ever been before.
For with the papists there is no end to blaspheming and persecuting such a dear, even recognized word of truth; so with some of ours the sevenfold devil also entered them and made them worse than they had been in the papacy. There they had to listen to lies and admit large sums of money, so that they would certainly go to hell. Now that they have the pure truth and everything for free and give nothing in addition, they also want to be unpunished and have the pastor or preacher with them to the devil; for which pastor or preacher does not punish sin, he must go to the devil with other people's sins, even if he is a child of blessedness because of his own sins, which are forgiven him in Christ.
It may well happen that some pastors are clumsy with words: but a pious Christian should have learned so much (I wanted to say so little) so long ago that he could say with a little patience: Well, my pastor, who is otherwise pious, strikes me or fails me, does me wrong or right, then I will also suffer it in honor of the word, whose office he now leads, and my Lord, who suffered death and hell for me: if not, then I will speak to him kindly, or let the next pastor or superintendent act. If the priest has spoken out of malice, revenge or hatred, he should be forgiven or removed. But if it is only from the sevenfold devil of the impatient drop that the following pastor (if he has to have them) avoids such sevenfold devil children, and considers them nothing else than the man who sat at the table in Christ's supper, and after the dipped bite let all devils go into him; let them also have no fellowship with the Christians,
but deny sacrament, absolution, and all the grace of Christ, do not stand for baptism, nor ring the bell for the funeral or bridal procession; but let them die like dogs, and let them be buried on your shingle, where the ravens, crows, jackdaws, and wolves may sing the vigils and soul masses over such saints. For it is not to be suffered that if I had served as a faithful priest for ten or twenty years, I would have had to wait for them day and night when they were ill or had pestilence, so that I would have well deserved heaven, and for the sake of such a proud wretch, who throughout his life would not have given a penny either for the sake of God or for the sake of man, I should let God shut his mouth in me, and thus go to the devil with foreign sins together with him.
For God seriously commands, Ezk. 3: "If you do not tell the wicked, I will take his soul from your hands. And St. Paul says to Timothy 1 Ep. 5, 22: "Beware that you do not make yourself a party to the sins of others." But Germany looks at me the same as Jerusalem in the days of John the Baptist, who said, "The ax is laid to the tree, and he hath his word shovel
in his hand, will sweep his threshing floor, gather the grain into his barn, and burn the chaff with everlasting fire." Matth. 3, 12.
Therefore, be pious who can, and be evil who will. And be diligent, you priests, to exhort the people to thanksgiving, to prayer, and above all to the improvement of life. And it would not be useless for you to introduce from time to time some pieces of the papal tyranny, under which we have lived in all misery, so that they may realize all the better how blessed they are now, and how they are relieved of innumerable burdens.
The others, who do not want to, must be left to sink and become full of their sense (as Solomon says): they must not blame us, as if they did not know. God is still so wise and powerful that he knows how to save his church without the help of the world and the devil. It is said: As you wish, devil, with all your own; Christ will not only remain well before you, but will also finally crush your head; from this we rely. To Him be praise and glory, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, a true God and Creator of all things, forever and ever, amen.