# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 05 23_S154
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

154

a special attention, in that instead of these he gives a five-part and extremely meager statement of the whole contents.

5. He adds—naturally as a pointer to the right understanding—a paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer, which can hardly be surpassed in wateriness and poverty.

Most of these points need no further discussion. Only in regard to No. 2 may something more be necessary.

Sect. VII. Q. 100, p. 87, he says in the answer

—to God as our almighty Father.

Here we ask

Whom does he mean there? Does he mean God the Father, or does he mean the triune God? If the latter, why does he not say so? Or was it not necessary to say? He who is not firm in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity thinks to find in the word Father in the Lord's Prayer an evasion for his unbelief. But he who is firmer perhaps takes offense at this, that the address in the Lord's Prayer is not otherwise. How these latter are to be answered we have seen in the citation from Luther quoted on the preceding page: "Here some are troubled, etc."

And why then does the author in his answer single out just the word almighty? Would it not have been much nearer to say

to the Father reconciled through Christ?

But the word the almighty Father is the expression of the first article, in which we say "I believe in God the Father Almighty."

Accordingly the author has nothing against the worship of God the Father

But has he also nothing against the worship of the Son and of the Holy Ghost? That is the question.

It is remarkable that in the whole section (on the worship of God) he makes no mention at all of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

But let one add what he says

Q. 94. Who then alone is to be worshipped?

Ans. No one but God, the only Creator and Ruler of the whole world.

Here one is again reminded only of the first article, for the expression Creator and Ruler of the whole world is quite the same as that with which, in the language of divine worship, God the Father is addressed, as we pray:

Lord God Father in heaven, Creator and Ruler of the whole world

while to the Son we say:

Lord God Son, Savior of the world

and to the Holy Ghost:

Lord God Holy Ghost, thou highest Comforter in all need

and to all three Persons, as to the triune God:

O thou holy, highly praised Trinity.

Why does the author speak only in accordance with the first article and not of all three?

Why does he not give to the question

Who is to be worshipped

the simple, correct and customary answer:

the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. †)

†) Cf. the excellent Matth. Seidel's (Provost, in Berlin) Small Cat. of Dr. Martin Luther, especially explained from the great one, Berl. 1729.
Preface of the Lord's Prayer, p. 294.
Q. Who is understood here by the Father?
Ans. The triune God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, by reason of creation, redemption and regeneration.
Is. 9:6. Unto us a Child is born, and He is called—Everlasting Father.
James 1:17, 18. He hath begotten us, etc.

And why—we ask further—does he add to Creator and Ruler the little word only?

Is God the Father perhaps Creator and Ruler in such a sense that the Son and the Holy Ghost are not?

Then they are also not to be worshipped, for—says the author himself—to worship, to worship alone, is no one but the only Creator and Ruler of the whole world; he is the God to be worshipped.

What then are the Son and the Holy Ghost?

Are they also to be worshipped or not?

Let the Catechism answer.

True, he says, the author who shuns confession, that the Scripture teaches this; ††) but he does not dare to say They are, namely: the Son and the Holy Ghost are to be worshipped in like manner as the Father.

††) Sect. 1, Q. 68.

Why does he not here also say

What does the Scripture teach about this, who is to be worshipped

but with assent and decisiveness "Who is to be worshipped?"

Indeed, the answer is so framed that one must say: the Son and the Holy Ghost are not included in it.

But if these are not to be included in the worship (otherwise the author would surely have included them), then they must—nothing else can follow—be excluded.

If they are to be excluded, then they must not be God, for God must be worshipped.

If they are not God, then they can be nothing else than creatures.

If they are creatures, then their worship is idolatry, for to worship creatures is truly idolatry, as the author rightly teaches in the following question.

Is it too much to say, when we make the author the reproach,

that he has so expressed himself that one must doubt whether Christ and the Holy Ghost are also to be worshipped; yes, so that one is led to hold the worship of them to be idolatry—?

But what shall one say of the one Person whom the author leaves standing?

Does it remain God, or does it come to nothing?

If it is to remain God, then the Son and the Holy Ghost must also remain God, for there is no true God except the triune, since all three Persons are God and yet there is only One divine essence.

If one now robs two Persons of worship and with it at the same time of the Godhead, then the Godhead of the one remaining falls away of itself, for such a divine Person who should be God alone and not have 2 other Persons who are also God, without therefore 3 gods resulting, does not exist.

What is it then, when it is spoken of as though it were real,—whether in the Lord's Prayer or elsewhere—when yet such an isolated Person †††) is a fabricated god, who is refuted by the testimonies of Scripture and rejected by the unanimous confessions of the Christian Church?

†††) (Exposition of the Last Words of David, Luther's Works, same ed. Walch, vol. 3, p. 2855.)
Therefore it helps the Jews, Turks, heretics nothing that they pretend very great devotion and boast against us Christians how they believe in the one God, Creator of heaven and earth, and call Him also Father with great earnestness, and it is nevertheless nothing but empty, vain, useless words, wherein they take the name of God in vain and misuse it, against the second commandment, as Christ says to the Jews, John 8:54. It is My Father that honoureth Me, of whom ye say, that He is your God, and ye have not known Him.
Truly, it rhymes very ill to call the Father God and not to know who He is. For if thou shouldst ask such a great saint, Jew, Turk, heretic,
whether he also believes that the same one God, Creator of heaven and earth (whose name they so devoutly extol and call Him Father, although all falsely) is also a Father and has a Son besides the creature in the Godhead—
he would shrink back with great holiness and hold such a thing for an abominable blasphemy.
Askest thou further
whether the same one God, Creator, Father (whom they thus name with their lying mouth) is also a Son and has a Father in the Godhead—
he would out of great devotion stop his ears, clench his teeth and fear that the earth might swallow thee and him.
Askest thou further:
whether the same one God, Creator, Father (as they boast) is also a Holy Ghost and has the Father and the Son, from whom He has His divine essence—
the most holy man would run from thee, as if thou wert the worst devil out of hell.
Here thou seest that they do not know what God is, and when they call Him "God, Creator, Father" they do not know what they say.
For where God is not to be such a God (as the Scripture teaches us) who is a natural Father, has a natural Son and both a natural Holy Ghost in the one divine essence, there God is nothing and no God at all.
Therefore they have no God, except that they misuse God's name with sin and shame and invent for themselves a God and Creator of their own, whose child they are to be, and he their Father; they take from Him His natural Fatherhood, His natural only Son and the natural Holy Ghost, that is: the whole Godhead, and give Him in its place their vain dream and lies, about God, Creator, Father; yea, such holy name of God they give to their dream and lies, that is, to the devil; he is their God and Father, a father of all lies, and yet they want to be the dearest little children and greatest saints.