Another sermon from the Holy Trinity.
(1) Since this feast demands that people be instructed, reminded and strengthened in the faith of the article of the Holy Trinity, let us speak of it a little. For if one is not properly instructed and grounded in this, the other feasts cannot be acted upon purely nor fruitfully; for the other feasts of the year wrap our Lord God in His works and wonders that He has done; as, in the cradle days (Christmas) of Christ, one celebrates that God became man; on Easter Day, that He rose from the dead; on Pentecost Day, how He gave the Holy Spirit and established the Christian Church, and so on: that all other feasts preach of our Lord God as he is clothed with a work. But this feast holds out to us who He is in Himself, apart from all clothing or works, merely in His divine essence. Then we must rise above all reason, leave all creatures behind, and listen only to what God says about Himself and about His inner nature, otherwise we will not know.
(2) Then God's foolishness and the world's prudence clash with each other. For the world, when it hears that God speaks of Himself in this way, that He is one God and yet three different persons, considers it to be an annoying, foolish sermon, and all who follow reason and hear such things consider the people who believe and teach such things to be pure fools; hence this article has always been contested from the time of the apostles and fathers until this day; as the histories testify, and especially the Gospel of St. John. Johannis, which he also has alone to confirm this article.
He wanted to prove from Moses that there was only One God, therefore our Lord Jesus Christ could not be the true God, because God and man did not rhyme together; he therefore chatted out of reason, and thought that as it could be conceived, so it should be in heaven, and not otherwise.
But fie on you, you shameful reason! How do we wretched, poor people come to this, who do not know how our own speaking, laughing or sleeping is done, what natural works we do and feel every day; and still want to speak of God as it is in His divine nature, without God's word, only from our own head? Is this not blindness beyond all blindness, that a man who cannot pronounce the slightest work that he sees in his body daily, still dares to know that which is beyond and above all reason, and of which only God Himself can speak, and may so brazenly plump out and say that Christ is not God?
(4) Indeed, if it were necessary to speak of such things at one's own discretion, I would be able to do so; but if one has thought of them long and sharply, and holds them against the Scriptures, they do not hold the sting. Therefore we must speak (or stammer) of such things as the Scriptures tell us, that Jesus Christ is truly God; that the Holy Spirit is truly God: and yet are not three gods, or three divine natures, as there may be three brothers, three angels, three suns, or three windows; for so they are not divided, but are one divine essence, as they cannot be divided in essence, and yet are distinct persons. For thus St. Paul speaks of Christ Hebr. 1, 3, he is the image of his being etc.; item Col, 1, 15:
"Who is the image of the invisible God, and the firstborn before all creatures. These words are to be left as they stand, namely, that he puts all creatures, angels and men, and whatsoever they are, under Christ: where this happens, there must be the same God; for apart from the creature there is nothing but God Himself; so that it is even One Thing, and just as much said, Christ is the firstborn before all creatures, as if it were badly said, Christ is truly eternal God.
And that it is certainly enough grasped, he adds: He is the image of the invisible God. If he is an image of God, then he must be a person, distinct from the one whose image he is, and yet in one divine being with the Father; so that he and the Father are not one, but two persons, otherwise he would not be called an image of divine being, if he were not the same God. Since no creature can be an image of the divine being, which it does not have in itself. So he could not be called an image of God, if there were not different persons: one of him from whom the image proceeds; the other of him who is the image, which is (as we say more clearly according to the Scriptures) one of the Father, who is born in eternity, the other of the Son, who is born in eternity, and yet both equally eternal, powerful, wise and just.
Therefore, even though the Jews and Turks mock us as if we were three brothers in heaven, it does not matter; I could do it, too, if it were a matter of mocking or scoffing. But they do us violence, and lie to us. For we do not make three men or three angels, but one divine being and the most united unity, against all that is hereafter, that body and soul are not so united together, as God is united. And further say that the Holy Scripture teaches us that in the same divine unity, God the Father, before all creatures were created, and, as St. Paul used to say, before the foundations of the earth were laid, begat in eternity a Son who is like Him, and is God in all measure, as He is God; for otherwise St. Paul could not say that He was an image of the invisible God.
God. This implies that there is a difference between the Father and the Son, and that there is nevertheless one God; so we cannot deny St. Paul and become Jews and Turks.
7 Again St. Paul speaks of Christ, but with different words, 1 Cor. 10, 9: "Let us not tempt Christ, as some of them tempted him, and were slain of serpents" etc. See how St. Paul and Moses kiss each other so sweetly and how one answers the other so kindly. Moses speaks 4 Mos. 14, 22.: "This people has now tempted me ten times, and has not obeyed my voice." And in the same place stands the word "Lord", which we have therefore printed everywhere in the Bible in large letters, that it is the name which alone is due and given to the eternal, one, true God. For the other words with which God is otherwise called are sometimes spoken by men; but this word, "Lord," is spoken by God alone. Now Moses says: "The Lord Adonai (the true God) says: "This people has tempted me ten times". So St. Paul also comes and says who the God was, and says: "They have tempted Christ. Now make a hole through it, as you will, St. Paul says it is Christ; Moses says it is the one, eternal, true God; in addition, Christ was not yet born at that time; indeed, neither David nor Mary was born yet: and yet he says dryly, "They have tempted Christ; let us not tempt Him also.
8 From this it certainly follows that Christ is the man of whom Moses writes that he is God, and so both Moses as long before and St. Paul confess at the same time, with one mouth, but with another name, that Christ must be God's Son, born of the Father in eternity, in one divine being, and yet something distinct. Call it what you will, we call it a person: it is not spoken enough, but stammered (as we also stammer in the word "Trinity") but how shall we do it? we cannot do it better. That therefore the Father is not the Son, and yet the
Son is eternally born of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Father and God the Son, and thus are three persons, and yet only One God. For what Moses says of God, St. Paul also says of Christ.
9 In this way St. Paul also speaks Acts 20, 28, when he blessed those at Mileto, and admonished the pastors, whom he had called together, of their office, and thus says: "Take heed to yourselves, and to all the host, among whom the Holy Spirit has made you bishops, to feed the church of God, which he (God) has purchased by his own blood" etc. This is also a clear text, from which it follows without any contradiction that our Lord Christ, through whose blood the church was purchased, is God, who is the church. For he clearly says: It is God who has won the Church through His blood and of whom the Church is His own. Since, as we have heard, the persons are distinguished, and since it is nevertheless stated here that God Himself acquired the Church through His blood, it is concluded that God has His own blood, which He shed for His Church, that is, that Christ, our Beatificator, is true God, born of God the Father in eternity, after which He also became man in time and was born of the virgin Mary.
(10) For if this blood (that is, the bodily, tangible, red-colored, shed blood of a natural man) is truly called God's blood, then this man must be true God, an eternal, omnipotent person, of the one divine essence, of which it can be said with truth: This blood, which flowed from the side of the crucified Christ and was shed on the earth, is not the blood of a bad, noisy man (like the others), but God's own blood. For St. Paul does not speak this out of frivolity, but in the highest cause, and with great earnestness makes such an exhortation, that he may well remind us of the high office of governing and feeding the church with God's word, lest we make a joke of it; but know that it is so precious and great in his sight, so precious to him is his dear Son's blood, which all creatures are not able to do.
to pay, and if we are diligent or unfaithful in such office, that we sin and become guilty of the blood of God, that it must be shed in vain for the souls over which we are to preside.
(11) Such sayings are many more, and especially in the Gospel of John, where one cannot but say that God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit are three distinct persons, yet in one divine being. For we do not worship three gods, as the Jews and Turks mock us, but only one God, whom the Scripture tells us are three persons, and yet only one God. When Christ said to Philip John 14:9: "Philip, he that seeth me seeth my Father also." There he puts himself in one, equal, divine being with the Father (just as St. Paul Col. 1, 15., where he calls him an image of the invisible God), and yet shows that there are two distinct persons: the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father, and yet they are one God. Such sayings, I say, are now and then many more, by which the holy fathers have chivalrously preserved this article against the devil and the world, until it is finally inherited by us.
(12) Whether reason thinks it foolishness, what do we ask of it? For it is no art to reason in such matters; otherwise I could do it, as well as others: but, praise God, I have the grace not to desire much to dispute here; but when I know that it is God's word and that God has spoken thus, I do not inquire further how it can be true, and let myself be content with the word of God alone, it rhymes with reason as it will. So should every Christian do in all the articles of our holy faith, not to argue and dispute much about whether it is possible, but only to see and ask whether it is God's word: if it is his word that he has said, then you can be sure that he will not lie or deceive you, even if you do not understand how or when. Therefore, because we have God's word of this article of the Holy Trinity for certain, and the
Since the holy fathers from the beginning of the church have fought for and preserved it so gallantly against all kinds of mobs, one should not dispute how it is that God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one God; for this is incomprehensible: and let it suffice that God speaks and testifies of Himself in this way in His Word. He knows very well what he is and how to speak of his essence, as you can think.
(13) And how dare you grasp and know this high, incomprehensible, divine being, when you know nothing about your own body and life? You do not know how it is that your mouth laughs, that your eyes see a castle or a mountain for ten miles; item, that a man, when he sleeps, is dead in body, and yet lives. We cannot know the least thing about ourselves, how it is that a hair grows, and in the name of the devil we want to climb up to heaven with our reason, which is so blind in its own matters, without God's word, and grasp God in His majesty and uncover it. If you want to use your reason and wisdom, why don't you use it on yourself in things, since you deal with them every day, and ask where your five senses are when you sleep, where your voice comes from when you laugh etc.? In such things one would like to worry without sin; but here, what and how the simple being fei, there one remains simple with the word, which says, how Christ is an image of the invisible God, and is the firstborn before all creatures, that is, that he is like God with the Father.
14 Therefore he says Joh. 5, 23: "They should honor the Son as they honor the Father"; item: "Whoever believes in me", says Joh. 12, 44, "does not believe in me, but in him who sent me"; item Joh. 14, 1: "If you believe in God, believe also in me"; item Joh. 16, 15: "All that the Father has is mine" etc. These and similar sayings do not suffer a hole to be drilled through them. For God has spoken it, who does not lie, and only knows how to speak rightly of God, and thus this article is strongly enough founded in the holy Scriptures.
(15) After this comes the third person, the Holy Spirit, who is called in Scripture the Spirit of God, or his soul. He is not called and born, like the Son, but proceeds from the Father and the Son; that is, such a person, who has the divine essence in eternity, from the Father and the Son at the same time, as the Son alone has it from the Father. So that there are three different persons, but in one divine essence and majesty. For thus the Scripture holds it forth to us, that the Lord Christ is the Son of God from eternity, and the image of the Father, equally great, mighty, wise, righteous; that there is nothing in the Father of divinity, wisdom, power, and might; there is in Him also, and in the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. If anyone therefore desires to know how it is, tell him that it is an incomprehensible being, above all angels and creatures, since no more can be known of it than is indicated to us in the Scriptures.
(16) Therefore the fathers did right, that they understood the faith or symbolism in a simple way, as the children pray it: I believe in God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, etc. and in the Holy Spirit. We did not make this confession, nor did we invent it, nor did the forefathers; but, as a bee gathers honey from various beautiful and amusing little flowers, so this symbolism is taken from the dear prophets and apostles' books, that is, from the whole of the holy Scriptures, finely summarized for the children and simple Christians. This is why it is called the apostles' symbolism or faith, because it is such that it could not have been summarized better and more concisely and clearly. And from time immemorial it has remained in the church in such a way that either the apostles themselves have put it together, or it has been compiled from their writings or sermons by their best disciples.
17. for the first time it lifts: I believe. In whom? In God the Father. This is the first person in the Godhead. And that all three persons may be distinguished all the more truly, is recently expressed for each quality and characteristic in which it is especially manifested. When, in the first person, the
Work of creation. For although it is true that this work is not only of One Person, but of the one, whole, divine, eternal Being, that one must say: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, created heaven and earth: but here such work is reported in the person of the Father, as he is the first person, because otherwise he does not show himself visibly and outwardly in any work, but in the creation of all creatures, which is the first work of the divine majesty towards the creatures. But in fact and in particular he is distinguished from the other persons by this word "Father", in order to show that he is the first person and of no other; but the Son and the Holy Spirit are of your Father.
(18) Then faith says, "I believe in one more, who is also God (for faith is such a thing that belongs to no creature, but to God alone); what is his name? Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son. Thus have Christians prayed for more than fifteen hundred years, indeed, all believers from the beginning of the world; and though they have not had these very words, yet they have believed and confessed the same.
(19) This, then, is the first distinction of God the Son, that he is called the only Son of God. For although all the angels, indeed all the Christians of our Lord, are called sons and children of God, none of them is called the only or only begotten Son; but the Lord Christ alone was born of the Father in such a way that he has no equal among all creatures, not even among the angels, namely, that he is the true, natural Son, that is, of the same divine, eternal, uncreated Being of God the Father.
20. then his special works are told: He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of Mary, a virgin, suffered under Pontio Pilato, was crucified, died and was buried, descended into hell; on the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of God, his heavenly Father, and will come again on the last day to judge the dead and the living etc. Hereby the Son is judged according to his own
work; for he alone, not the Father, nor the Holy Spirit, became a natural man, blood and flesh, as we are, suffered, died, rose again, ascended into heaven etc.
21. The third follows: I believe in the Holy Spirit. Here again a different person is named, but also of divine essence with the Father and Son; for one should and must believe in no one but the true God alone, according to the first commandment: I alone am your God. And so, in this confession, both the unity of the divine being is summarized in the shortest way, that we believe and worship one God, but in three different persons; just as such a difference is also indicated in holy baptism, since we are baptized in one God's name, and yet Christ commands to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit etc.
(22) Now the characteristic of this person is that he proceeds both from the Father and the Son; therefore he is also called the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son, who is poured out into the hearts of men, and manifests himself in the work of gathering together the church of Christ in every tongue, enlightening and inflaming hearts to one faith through the word of the gospel, sanctifying them, making them alive, and saving them.
(23) So also in this confession of the Symbol, the three persons are included in One Divine Being, and yet are different, each being clothed with a special work before the other, so that the simple Christians may know that there is only One Divine Being and one God, but still three persons. In addition to this, different works are added to the sign, so that the persons are not mixed into one another. To the Father is given the work of creation, to the Son the redemption, to the Holy Spirit the power to forgive sins, to make happy, to strengthen and finally to bring from death to eternal life. Not to think that the Father alone is the Creator, or the Son alone the Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit alone sanctifies: but though all things create and maintain, are sufficient for sin, forgive sin, raise up from death.
and give eternal life, are works of the whole divine majesty: but the Father is shown in the work of creation, which originally proceeds from him as the first person; the Son in the work of redemption, which he performs in his own person; the Holy Spirit in the work of sanctification, to which he is specially sent and manifests himself; so that Christians may have this simple certain understanding that there is only one God, and yet there are three persons in one divine being, as the holy fathers have diligently compiled from Moses and from the writings of the prophets and apostles and preserved them against all heretics.
(24) This faith has been inherited by us, and God has forcibly preserved it in His Church to this day against all the rotten ones and devils. Therefore we should remain simple-minded and not be prudent. For Christians are such people who believe that which is foolish to reason. As St. Paul says in 1 Cor. 1:21 that our Lord God would make the world foolish through the preaching of the gospel. For how can reason send itself into this, or believe that three is one and one is three, that God became man, that a man, when he is bathed in water according to the command of Christ, is bathed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and washed clean from all sins? etc. Such articles are mere foolishness to reason; so that St. Paul calls the gospel a foolish sermon, by which our God saves those who do not want to be wise and believe the word badly; the others, who want to follow reason in such matters and despise the word, shall fall to the ground and perish because of their wisdom.
So now we have sufficient proof of the Holy Trinity from the Holy Scriptures and from the Symbol, as much as is necessary for a simple Christian to learn. Above such proof there are also miraculous signs, so that the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is attested, which should not be disregarded, nor should they be thrown to the winds. For our Lord God such miraculous signs of his
He is not only concerned that the people who have taught wrongly are punished, for he could well save that in this life, as he otherwise lets many people go unpunished for ten, twenty, thirty years. But he publicly attacks the rulers who blaspheme and revile God with false doctrine here in this life with a special, unusual punishment, so that other people may take offense at this and have this as a testimony (about which they are publicly convicted of their blasphemy beforehand, also condemned by their own conscience), that they have been the originators and beginners of blasphemy against God's name and word; that everyone must say that God has no pleasure in their doctrine, because He attaches special stigmas to them, that they perish by the mean way of other punishments, which otherwise go upon wicked people.
26. So the histories say that in the time of John the Evangelist there was a heretic named Cerinthus, who first preached against the apostles' doctrine and defiled our Lord Christ, saying that he was not God; and this blasphemy took so much influence that the holy evangelist John, after the other evangelists, had to write his gospel, and most of all, as you can see, to defend and uphold the divinity of Christ against this Cerinthum and his group. As can be seen, St. John, especially before the other evangelists, starts his gospel high, and does not refer to many miraculous works of the Lord Christ, but to his sermons, in which he painted himself mightily, that he was true God, born of the Father in eternity, in equal power, glory, wisdom, righteousness and all other divine works. But it happened at a time that the dear St. John went into a public bath with some of his disciples. When he became aware that the heretic Cerinthus and his flock were also there, he did not tarry long and told his disciples to leave with him quickly and not to remain among the blasphemers. The disciples followed him and soon departed with him. How
Now they had gone out of the bath, as soon as the room invades, and slays Cerinthum with its appendage, that not one of them came.
27 Thus one also reads of the heretic Ario, who before all others fiercely contested this article, that our Lord Christ is true God, and did noticeable damage to Christianity, that one had to deal with it four hundred years after his death, and yet today it has not yet been completely eradicated. Then our Lord God also came and defended His honor with a remarkable miracle. For history writes that Arius had so highly pledged himself to the Emperor Constantine and his advisors, and that he had persuaded them with an oath that he had never taught unrighteously; and the Emperor Constantine commanded the Bishop Alexandro of Constantinople to recognize him as a member of Christendom and to accept him back into the priesthood. Because the pious bishop refused to do so (for he saw well what Arius and his crowd were doing), Eusebius and the other bishops who were on Arius' side threatened him that if he did not want to accept him again, according to the imperial edict, they would expel him by force and Arius would be accepted by the entire congregation; therefore, he would consider the matter until the next day.
28) The pious bishop was afraid of the matter; therefore, because the Arii's followers were so great and powerful, and in addition had the emperor's edict and the whole court on their side, he thought to seek help from God, since in such matters concerning God's honor only God can be found; he fell down on his face to the earth in the church, and prayed all night that our Lord God would send such means for the salvation of His name and honor that the wicked leader would be prevented from
and his Christianity would be helped against the heretics. When it was morning, and about the time that they were to gather in the church at the appointed place, and the bishop Alexander was either to accept Arium, or to be expelled from office, Arius found himself in time with his followers, and went splendidly with a large crowd to the church, but on the way he was sore in body, that he desired a chamber. When the crowd was waiting for him in the alley, the news came that he had died in the chamber and that his lungs and liver had been taken away from him: Mortem dignam blasphema et foetida mente, most, that is, he had such an end that rhymes well with a blasphemous and stinking heart.
29. So this article of God was first preserved by the writings and struggle of the apostles and fathers, then also by miracles or wonders against the devil and his blasphemers, and will henceforth be preserved in this way, so that we should have no doubt about it, but believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit; as our children and we confess daily in faith, so that one does not make a lump or only one person out of it; for this is why three different works have been put in place, so that the common Christian man may have a difference between the persons, and yet not divide the nature, and let one God remain in an undivided being. This is what is preached today on this Sunday, so that people may learn and know that we did not come into this doctrine through a dream, but by God's grace through His Word and through the holy apostles and fathers. May God help us all that we may be found constant and pure in such doctrine and faith until our end, amen.