# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 09 17_S10
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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false. And we conclude thus: To whatever end God has revealed the Holy Scripture through the apostles and prophets, to that end must also man's faith, doctrine and life be directed, or else it is a false faith, false doctrine and life. Now God the LORD has graciously revealed the Holy Scripture through the prophets and apostles, yea, through His dear Son Himself, for His own and man's own true knowledge, for His divine honors, for our comfort and eternal welfare and salvation, also for our amendment and the love of the neighbor; therefore our faith, doctrine and life must also be directed to this end and goal. And accordingly all doctrine must be false which does not lead to the true knowledge of God and of oneself, to God's honor, to our comfort, to our salvation, to amendment and to the love of the neighbor. And it follows also from this that such a doctrine conflicts with the Holy Scripture, with God and His honor, with true comfort, with salvation, with amendment and with the love of the neighbor, according to the rule of Christ, our LORD: "He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth." Luke 11, 23.

"For this reason it has been so long begged and entreated that all doctrine be judged and tried by God's Word, for the same can neither deceive nor seduce us, since the same is the eternal truth. Our LORD says: "He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him, the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day"; and the holy Apostle Paul says to the Romans 2, 16: "That God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel," that is, according to the content and rule of the Gospel which he has proclaimed. Since then God's Word will be the Judge at the last judgment, why will they not let it be Judge in this life? In the first place, in articles of faith it has bright, clear, unambiguous, plain, weighty and powerful words, which are not men's words but God's words, and to doubt them, much less to dispute against them, is not fitting. In the second place, the Holy Scripture has a uniform, harmonious, plain, unambiguous, certain sense in articles of faith, from which the truth can be confirmed with good ground by undeniable inference; for the faithful and true witnesses of God speak by the Holy Ghost out of one mouth in matters of faith, inasmuch as there is one Spirit by whom they have spoken, and He is a Spirit of truth. Therefore the 19th Psalm, v. 8, 9, 10, says: "The testimony of the LORD is sure, the commandments of the LORD are right; the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether." In the third place, the coherence (the context) bears witness, what goes before and follows after, what the scope and goal is of which the Scripture speaks, and how the sayings which might perhaps be drawn to another meaning are to be understood. In the fourth place, the testimony of the whole Holy Scripture in all articles of faith has this finis, this end and goal, namely the knowledge of God and of man, God's honor, true comfort, our salvation, amendment and love. In the fifth place, our conscience in temptation, in the cross and in the distress of death convinces us that our heart rests and relies on that alone which God's Word, with plain clear words, also with the harmonious sense and testimony of the Scripture, has revealed concerning the knowledge of God, His divine honor, for our comfort and eternal welfare and salvation."

"When now, according to these true and irrefutable grounds, one judges and tries the contrary, disputed doctrines, it cannot fail but that the truth must become manifest and the falsehood be discovered, and this will be easily found when one holds the Papistic and Calvinistic doctrine against the aforementioned grounds and rules."

In what follows next, Arndt now enumerates the errors of the Roman Catholic Church and then continues as follows:

"We conclude, therefore, that all this, and whatever is of the sort, is false doctrine, because it runs contrary not only to the plain, clear Word of God, but also to the goal and end of the whole Holy Scripture. The same is found also in the Calvinistic doctrine, when one holds it against these irrefutable grounds and sure rule of the truth.

First, they teach, as Peter Martyr and Beza write, that it is impossible for the omnipotence of God to bring it about that a true human body can be in many places. *) This is not only contrary to the clear, plain Word of God, Jer. 32, 17. 27. Zech. 8, 6., contrary to the true knowledge of God, contrary to God's honor, contrary to all comfort, contrary to the first article of our Christian faith, but is also a blasphemy and flows from the pool of unbelief. For before they will believe that Christ's body and blood are in the Supper, they rather deny the omnipotence of God; for it cannot be otherwise, it must come to this: if one will not believe the Word of God, one must deny God's power, as the LORD joins these two things together, Matth. 22, 29. "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." So it must finally go, if one will ascribe to the holy body of Christ, which is united with the eternal, infinite Godhead and is one Person, no more than to our natural, sinful and mortal bodies."

*) Peter Martyr, this active instrument in the building of the Reformed Church of Germany, England and Switzerland, died at Zürich in the year 1562, writes dial. p. 6. et contra Gardinerum obj. 11: "that God with all His power cannot bring it about that Christ's body can be essentially present at one and the same time in several places, or be anywhere else now than in heaven." The same he confirms word for word in thes. in Colloq. Mompelg. p. 33. Th. Beza (died 1605 as professor of theology at Geneva); this colleague and intimate friend of Calvin, whose work he continued. Since a whole host of Reformed theologians had set up the above principle, denying God's omnipotence, in order to be able to contest the Biblical doctrine of the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper, the Lutheran Church also was compelled to renounce this blasphemy in one of its public Confessions. For in the Formula of Concord, among the "contrary condemned doctrines of the Sacramentarians" (the Reformed), this also is listed: "that God, with all His almightiness (which is terrible to hear), is not able to bring it about that His body be essentially present at one time in more than one place." (Summar. Begriff. Art. 7.)

"In the second place, Zwingli writes that God created Esau for this, that he should live ungodly. *) Zanchius writes that Adam fell into sin by God's ordinance. Likewise, that God gave Adam cause to sin. Likewise, that God raised up Pharaoh to do all the evil that he did. **) Calvinus writes, man is fallen, because God has so ordained it by His providence. ***) Beza says, God moves, incites, makes powerful and effective the wickedness which He finds in Satan and men, and so wills that they do what they do. †) Does not this contradict the Scripture: "Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness; neither shall evil dwell with thee"? Does not this darken the true knowledge of God, and defame God's honor?"

*) Thus Zwingli writes, namely, in his Elenchus contra Catabaptistarum strophas: "If, therefore, we learn from the wild disposition of Esau that this man was rejected of God, we shall cry out in vain: O that he had died as a child! for he could not die whom divine providence created for this (in hoc creavit), that he should live, and indeed live ungodly." (Opp. lat. Tom. III. P. I. p. 429.) Further, in Sermone de provid. c. 5: "God Himself is the author of that which is unrighteousness to us, but by no means to Him."

**) Hieronymus Zanchi, from 1568 professor at Heidelberg, later at Neustadt, one of the most esteemed theologians of the Reformed Church, writes in his Miscell. theol. p. 252: "Sin, even considered as sin, in so far as it contributes, not according to its nature but according to the goodness of God, to the revelation of God's honor, this sin and this evil of guilt is in so far predestined by God." Further, in ep. ad Pezelium: "God permits sins, in so far as they are sins, with His will."

***) Calvin writes in his Instit. III. 23, 4: "I confess that all the sons of Adam have fallen by God's will into the wretched condition in which they are now entangled." In the same place it says: "Man falls because God's providence has so ordained it;" with this Calvin certainly does not mean to excuse men, he therefore adds: "but he falls by his own guilt." God and man, therefore, according to Calvin, share the guilt between them.

†) Beza writes in tractation. th. vol. I. p. 417: "That thou assertest that God has predestined whomsoever He would, not only to damnation, but also to the causes of damnation" (that is, to sin), "this we acknowledge as true with Paul." Further, in Colloq. Mompelg.: "Man has fallen not without cause, but according to God's providence; because that must happen which God had decreed." The same words which Arndt above puts into Beza's mouth we find only in the writings of Zwingli and Peter Martyr, who also expressly writes on the 1st Chap. to the Rom.: "We cannot deny that, be it as it may (quoquo modo), God is the cause of sin." Yea, Zwingli writes in Sermon. de prov. anamn.: "No one