1. comparison of the holy trinity.
2 There is an image of the Trinity in all creatures.
The article of the Holy Trinity surpasses all reason.
4. testimonies of the Holy Trinity.
The article of the Holy Trinity has always been contested.
6. as the learned pagans have described God.
7. that the heretics abuse their art and skill, and dispute the articles of faith.
1. comparison of the holy trinity.
In divine things and matters, the Father is the Grammatica, for he gives the words and is the fountain from which flow good, fine, pure words to be spoken. The Son is the Dialectica, for he gives the disposition, how a thing is to be put in fine order one after the other, so that it closes and follows one after the other. The Holy Spirit, however, is the Rhetorica, the speaker, if it is finely presented, blows and drives, makes alive and powerful, so that it presses on and takes the hearts.
2 There is an image of the Trinity in all creatures.
(Cordatus No. 1289. 1290.)
All that is his, including the Trinity, God has placed in his creature. So he also put the forgiveness of sins against the enemy, the swine, the ox, the woman, etc., which must be spared, just as he himself does. Therefore his epithet is that he alone is. For he alone can have patience with men, but with men is the greatest right, yea, even the greatest wrong. Thus Paul says in Acts, Cap. 13, [18.], "He tolerated their ways." In the sun you find the essence,
in rivers, the essence, the current, and the force; in astronomy, motion, light, influence; in grammar, three parts; in a Hebrew word, three essential letters; in arithmetic, three numbers; in dialectics, explanation, division, conclusion; in rhetoric, the outline, the delivery of the speech, the gestures, or the recital, for invention and memory are gifts of nature, not of art.
Thus every thing has weight, number and measure, but this, which is very good, the scholastics pass over and have devised useless things.
The article of the Holy Trinity surpasses all reason.
On the evening when Martin Luther had preached early about the Holy Trinity, he spoke a great deal about this high, excellent article of our Christian faith, which surpasses all human reason and understanding, namely, that one is three and three is one; which no arithmetician, philosopher, jurist, Jew or Turk can grasp or understand. Thus
1) Instead of splendor, which was just before also used of the sun, should be read with vine I, 4b and binding rope I, 8. probably luxury.
The similitude of the physical father and son does little for the matter, for it is a very weak image or similitude, in which only the difference of the two persons is indicated; namely, that these two persons are an inseparable being, which no creature can comprehend or indicate.
Basil, one of the ancient teachers, sets forth and shows the best simile or image of this, namely, that all men are called rational creatures because of reason, which is common and natural to all men, for what has reason is a man. But men are nevertheless differentiated: although they have a common name, that they are called rational men, yet one in particular is very unlike the other, because one far surpasses the other in understanding and reason, and also in other gifts and virtues.
4. testimonies of the Holy Trinity.
(This § is found in the house postilla. 2. sermon on sunday. Trin. Walch, St. Louis ed.; vol. XIII, col. 680-682, §1.)
This article has always been fiercely contested.
(This § is found in the 1. sermon on Sund. Trin. in the house postilion. Walch, St. Louis ed. vol. XIII, col. 666, §3; col. 667, §5 and 6; col. 674, §25; col. 675, §27. 28.)
6. as the learned pagans have described God.
The philosophers and learned pagans have described God as being like a circle, which dot is everywhere in the middle, but its circumferentiality, which is all around it from the outside, is nowhere. So that they would indicate that God is everything and nothing; for our Lord God is everywhere, and yet cannot be comprehended nor grasped. I find him not only at Jerusalem in the temple, and in the image and likeness,
as he exemplifies and holds himself up to me. He is everywhere, namely in the baptism, crib, sacrament, but nowhere is he in his majesty, nor in my speculation, as I paint him according to my thoughts and sense. Oh good God, how wondrous you are, "who put to shame the wise in their wisdom," Job 1:12, 13. It still takes effort and work enough for us to understand and attain something of it, only the ABC, if we pray diligently and call upon God for help. And if the wicked, out of their own thirst and iniquity, according to their own reason, want to decide and do something without and against God, then God turns it around immediately, so that it wins the canker: and if he does not, then he loses the honor and glory of his majesty.
7. that the heretics abuse their skill and art and dispute the articles of faith.
When in 1532 a horribly evil book against the Holy Trinity had gone out in print, D. Luther said: "The enthusiasts do not think that other people have also been challenged by this article; but it does not hold the sting that I oppose the Word of God and the Holy Spirit with my thoughts. When M. Veit Dietrich said to the doctor: "Someone should ask that he would not be taught in the Holy Scriptures, but that he would be taught in them. Thereupon said D. Luther said: "Oh no, otherwise one would also have to ask that there be no gold in the world; item, that there be no sun, for the sun is a cause of all sins and vices in the other table of the ten commandments, and if there were eternal night 1), then there would be less death and murder, or fornication and adultery, also less theft.
1) So set by us. Aurifaber: "not". Stangwald: "day and night". - Night" also stood in the section we omitted, Cap. 15, § 42.