1 Saint Paul writes from time to time that Christ, our Lord, is a mystery, and the holy church (to the Ephesians [Cap. 5, 32]) with Christ, her bridegroom, may also be called a mystery. In former times, when I had to be called a doctor of the holy scriptures, I considered this to be a bad speech, which I understood very well. But now I (praise God!) have again become a poor student of the Holy Scriptures, and the longer the less I am able, the more I begin to regard such words as strange, and from experience I find this gloss that it must be called a secret; for as brightly and clearly as the apostles preach about it (even with miraculous signs), I do not understand it.
It remained hidden and secret to the highest and wisest people on earth, as he says Matth. 11, 25: "You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, but have revealed them to the children" etc. Is it not miraculous enough? is it not secret enough: which is so publicly preached, and shines brighter than the sun, and is confirmed with so many great miraculous signs (which one cannot deny, God must do them), yet the most high, the cleverest, the holiest, the best here are supposed to be blind, deaf and nonsensical, that they cannot see, hear or feel it? Council here elders well, what is that? There is nothing more obvious, and yet nothing more secret; nothing more comprehensible than this.
In the beginning, Joh. Spangenberg was rector at Gandersheim and Stollberg. When he came to the realization of the evangelical truth, he was called to Nordhausen as the head preacher at the church of St. Blasii. From there, on Luther's recommendation, he came to Eisleben as preacher of St. Andrew's Church and as superintendent of the county of Mansfeld. While he was in Nordhausen, he published in the years 1542 to 1544 a postilla on the Sunday and feast day gospels and epistles, written in a catechetical manner in questions and answers. It has five parts in folio. The first part, to which Luther wrote this preface, covers the Gospels from the first Advent to Easter, and appeared in 1542; likewise the second part, which contains the Gospels to the end of the church year. The third part, in which the Gospels and Epistles of the most important feast days, apostles' days and saints' days are explained, was published in 1543. This was followed in 1544 by the interpretations of the Sunday epistles. This postilla has not only been reprinted several times, but also translated into Latin and Low German. The preface is found in the Wittenberg edition (1559), vol. XII, p. 371 b; in the Jena edition (1562), vol. VIII, p. 43; in the Altenburg edition, vol. VIII, p. 45; in the Leipzig edition, vol. XXII, appendix, p. 132; and in the Erlangen edition, vol. 63, p. 368.
There is nothing more incomprehensible than Christ in the manger and on the cross, nothing more incomprehensible than Christ at the right hand of God and Lord over all. So his word, which preaches about him, is also done.
Our experience must also bear witness to this. How abundantly, brightly and clearly we have the same salvific word from Christ! But to whom is such manifest, bright, clear light known and pleasant? Is it not mystery and secret enough, not only for the papists, but also for ours, who boast of being almost evangelical? who do not think otherwise, when they have once read or heard it, that they are so full and enough that they could well teach all the apostles, not to mention their 1) poor pastors and preachers. Such think that it is neither a mystery nor a profound art, but a spoonful of wisdom, which they may drink up in one gulp.
Now, what do we preachers want to do, who are to govern churches under such archangels and super-angels? This is what we want to do, we want to let them know everything better and a hundred times better than we ourselves do. And Christ shall be neither mystery nor secret with them, but a living nutshell, since they have hollowed out the kernel long before they are born and thrown away the shells; but we meanwhile want to suck on this secret like a child on its mother's breast, until we also get something of it once, and not let ourselves be weaned from it so early and so temporally, as these high people wean themselves and are ashamed to suck their mother's teats. For they can walk themselves before they have grown legs and feet.
4. summa, we must let the world and the devils run their course, and with preaching, reproving, admonishing always stop, for the sake of those who shall know such a secret; to the others it is preached, as the rain falls into the water, or, as our Lord says Matth. 13, 19, is sown on the way; the secret alone wants to bear fruit on the fourth part of the field. Therefore, I am glad to see that this and similar books come to the people, not only to reveal such secrets, but also to make them more difficult to understand.
1) The Erlanger, which follows a Nuremberg reprint, offers: "schweiget ihr arme Pfarrherr" etc.
2) more false books. For they are not all pure who now write, and everyone wants to sell them in the store, not to reveal Christ or his secret, but not to have his own secret and beautiful thoughts, which he holds about Christ's secret, for free, so that he hopes to convert even the devils, if he has never converted a mosquito, or can convert, if it would not be the worst thing to convert.
(5) Nevertheless, some lazy pastors and preachers are also not good, who rely on such and other more good books, so that they can take a sermon from them, do not pray, do not study, do not read, do not strive for anything in the Scriptures, just as if one did not have to read the Biblia for that reason. They need such books as the forms and calendars to earn their yearly nourishment, and are nothing but parakeets or jackdaws that learn to repeat incomprehensibly, although our opinion and that of such theologians is to point them to the Scriptures and to admonish them to think, even to defend our Christian faith after our death against the devil, the world and the flesh. For we will not stand eternally at the head as we stand now.
(6) And as our forefathers bequeathed to us this mystery, though it was horribly destroyed by the pope, so we also bequeath it to them; and though they will not have as much to do to expose such abominations as we have done, yet they will have just as much to do (if not more) to resist and ward off the devil, lest he again cast such abominations into the church. Therefore it is said, watch, study, attende lectioni. Truly you cannot read too much in the Scriptures, and what you read you cannot read too well, and what you read well you cannot understand too well, and what you understand well you cannot teach too well, and what you teach well you cannot live so 3) well. Experto crede Ruperto. It is the devil, it is the world, it is our flesh that is against us.
2) In the Jenaer and the Erlanger: "zuverkommen ander" etc.; in the Wittenberger: "zuvorkommen". The reading here is conspicuous: "wrong", because otherwise "verkommen" is construed with the accusative. Cf. Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. VII, 599, § 43.
3) Thus the Wittenbergers and the Jenaers; Erlanger: zu.
rage and rage. Therefore, dear lords and brethren, pastors and preachers, pray, read, study, be diligent; for verily, it is no time for sloth, snoring, and sleeping, in this evil and shameful time. Use your gift, which is entrusted to you, and manifest the
Mystery of Christ. If anyone does not want to know, let him be ignorant, as St. Paul says 1 Cor. 14, 38. Because baptism and sacrament are there, we do not have to keep silent about the word of the mystery. It will be found when we have done our part, amen.