Of God's and Satan's obedience.
2. two kinds of sacrifice in the Old Testament.
3. argument from the service.
4. which means: to worship God, to serve.
5. the wretched alone praise God.
6. right Christian pilgrimage.
7. great signs and change, so in the church ge-
8. ^on the patriarchs' service.
9. true worship of the New Testament.
1. God's and Satan's obedience.
(Contained in Cap. 24, §123.)
, \2. Twofold sacrifice in the Old Testament.
The first was called the early or morning sacrifice, indicating that we should first offer to Christ, not oxen or cattle, but ourselves, confessing God's gifts, both bodily and spiritual, temporal and eternal, and thanking God for them. The other, the evening sacrifice, to indicate and signify that a Christian should offer to God a bruised, humble, repentant heart that considers its distress and danger, both bodily and spiritual, and cries out to God for help.
3. argument from the service.
One said, "God wants you to serve Him freely, voluntarily; but whoever serves God out of fear of punishment and hell, or out of hope and love of reward, does not serve and honor God freely, therefore he does not serve Him rightly. Answer: It is a
stoic argument, which the cane saints lead, who reject the affections and inclinations of human nature, and insist that one should willingly honor, serve, love and fear God alone as the highest good; which should be the noblest end and final cause. This is true: but God can well suffer that we love Him for His promise, and ask Him for bodily and spiritual goods: therefore He has also called us to ask, likewise to fear Him for the sake of punishment; as the prophets remind us.
It is a good thing that man can know the eternal punishment and reward of God: and if he looks to this as the end and cause, which is not the noblest, it does him no harm if he only pays attention and looks to God Himself as the noblest finite cause, who gives everything for nothing, out of pure grace, without our merit.
4. which means: Worshiping God, serving 2c.
To worship, the little word on Himself means to stoop and bow with the body, with out-
The giving of the gifts. Serving is the work. But worshiping God spiritually or in the spirit, John 4:24, is the service and honor of the heart, comprehending fear and faith in God. Worship is twofold, external and internal, that is, recognizing God's benefits and thanking Him.
My wretched ones praise God.
The whole world blasphemes God, and only the wretched honor and serve Him; as it is written: The poor and miserable praise the Lord. If the mighty and the wise did so, they would not give glory to God, but to themselves.
6. right Christian pilgrimage.
For some time in the papacy, pilgrimages were made to the saints, to Rome, Jerusalem, Compostel, to St. James, to do and pay enough for sin. But now we can make true Christian pilgrimages that please God in faith; namely, if we read the prophets, psalms, evangelists, etc. with diligence, we would not walk to God through the cities of the saints, but through our thoughts and hearts, that is, we would visit the true promised land and paradise of eternal life.
D. M. Luther said: That a German prince had come to Compostel in Hispania, where St. Jacob, the brother of the evangelist and apostle St. John, is supposed to be buried. When the prince confessed (as was the custom in the papacy, and wanted to obtain a large Roman indulgence and forgiveness of sins; as indulgences were given out there, whoever gave money for them) to a barefoot monk, who had been a pious monk, he asked the duke if he was a German? When the prince confessed this, the monk said: O dear child, why do you seek this so far away, which you have much better and more abundantly in German lands? for I have seen and read an Augustinian monk's writing on indulgences and the forgiveness of sins, in which he concludes powerfully that the forgiveness of sins and the true indulgence stand only in the merit and suffering of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in which the forgiveness of sins and the true indulgence stand only in the merit and suffering of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in which the forgiveness of sins and the forgiveness of sins stand only in the merit and suffering of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The child will be found at the end of all guilt and torment. And had said once again: O dear child, stay with it, and do not let yourself be persuaded otherwise.
7. great signs and change that happen in the church.
(Cordatus No. 828 and No. 462.)
The present decade has had so many miraculous signs than otherwise some centuries have had, and so many changes that no one would have hoped for, as: the emptying of the monasteries, the abolition of the corner fairs, the crowd of tyrants and swarming spirits, Rome twice devastated, Muenzer who increased so rapidly and perished in this course; Zwingli perished, and shortly after that Oecolampad died in a gentler way 2c.
All pagans serve their gods, Jeremiah says, and love them, only the people of the true God do not serve and love their God and the true God.
8. from the patriarchs service.
(Lauterbach, Jan. 29, 1538, p. 17.)
The holy patriarchs, from the creation of the world until Moses, for two thousand years, had no commandment from God to perform a specific service, and yet they offered their services and sacrifices to God. So GOt can be worshipped without a specific word of God, or their worship would have been in vain for two thousand years. Luther answered that this was an apparent and great argument, but could be resolved, namely, that the holy patriarchs had performed their services, but that these were confirmed by signs from heaven, namely consuming fire 2c. Likewise, that in those services they did nothing against the will of God, but only looked to the promised seed. Look at our papists and see if they are similar to them. Rather, they are quite unlike them, because they completely abandon God's word and the article of justification, and teach straight against the expressed will of God through their human statutes.
9. true worship of the New Testament.
(Contained in Cap. 33, § 12.)