# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 02 19_S98
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

98

flow and hang all the other commandments and the whole of Moses.

"For because He will be GOD alone, and have no other gods, etc., He has appointed so many and various ceremonies or services, and thereby has expounded the first commandment and taught how it is to be kept. Likewise, because He will have obedience to parents, and will suffer no adultery, murder, theft, or false witness, He has given the Judicialia, or the laws of outward government, whereby such commandments might be understood and fulfilled.

"Therefore it is not true that there are no ceremonies in the ten commandments, or no Judicialia; they are all in them and hang upon them and belong therein. And that God might show this, He Himself has set two ceremonies therein in express words, namely, the images and the Sabbath, and would prove that these two pieces are His ceremonies, and in their way have been abolished in the New Testament. That men may see how Doctor Carlstadt in his book on the Sabbath deals as cleverly as he did with the images. For St. Paul says, Col. 2, 16. 17, plainly and clearly: ""Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in part of days, namely of the holidays, new moons, or sabbaths, which is the shadow of that which was to come."" Here St. Paul abolishes the Sabbath indeed by name, and calls it a shadow that is past, because the body, which is Christ Himself, is come.

"Likewise, Gal. 4, 10. 11: ""Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain."" Here he calls it labour lost to keep days and feasts, among which the Sabbath also is. Isaiah also proclaimed this beforehand. Is. 66, 23: ""One sabbath shall follow another, and one new moon another,"" that is, daily will it be Sabbath in the New Testament, no distinction of time.

"And thanks be to the pious Paul and to Isaiah, that they delivered us so long beforehand from the factious spirits; else we should have to sit on the Sabbath days, and take our head in our hand, and wait for the heavenly voice, as they juggle. Yea, if Carlstadt should write further about the Sabbath, Sunday would have to give way, and the Sabbath, that is, Saturday, would have to be kept: he would verily make Jews of us altogether, so that we should have to be circumcised also, etc.

"For this is true, and no one can prevent it: whoever keeps a law of Moses as the law of Moses, or makes it necessary to keep it, must keep them all as necessary, as St. Paul concludes, Gal. 5, 3, and says: ""Whosoever suffers himself to be circumcised is a debtor to do the whole law."" So also, whoever breaks images, or keeps the Sabbath (that is, whoever teaches that they must be kept), must also let himself be circumcised, and keep the whole of Moses; which also, in truth (if these spirits were given room), in time they would be driven to do, to teach, and to keep. But now they do, by God's grace, just as St. Paul says, Gal. 6, 12: ""They that would have you circumcised keep not the law, but seek only a glory in your flesh."" So the image-breakers themselves do not keep the Law. For, apart from the fact that they let all the others go, they also do their storming without the Spirit, as a work whereby they lose Christ, the fulfilment of the Law, and seek only to gain a glory from us, as though they had taught something fine and masterly. — —

"You might say here: Surely you will not say that the first commandment is abolished; one must indeed have a God? Likewise, one must not commit adultery, murder, steal? etc. Answer: I have spoken of the law of Moses as the law of Moses. For to have one God is not the law of Moses alone, but also a natural law, as St. Paul says, Rom. 1, 21, ""that the heathen know of the Godhead, that there is a God."" The deed also proves this, that they have set up gods and established idol-services; which would have been impossible if they knew or thought nothing of God; but God has revealed it to them by the works, etc., Rom. 1, 19. That now the heathen have missed the true God, and worshipped idols instead of God, what wonder is that? The Jews also missed, and worshipped idols instead of God, although they had the law of Moses; and even now they miss the Lord Christ, who yet have Christ's Gospel.

"So also this is not the law of Moses alone: Thou shalt not kill, commit adultery, steal, etc. But also the ""natural law written in every man's heart,"" as St. Paul teaches, Rom. 2, 15. Christ Himself also, Matt. 7, 12, comprehends all the prophets and laws in this natural law: ""Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets."" So also St. Paul does, Rom. 13, 9, where he comprehends all the commandments of Moses in love, which also the natural law of nature teaches: ""Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."" Otherwise, if it were not written naturally in the heart, one would have to teach and preach law a long time before the conscience would accept it: it must itself find and feel it so within itself, else no one would make any conscience of it. Though the devil so blinds and possesses the hearts that they do not always feel such laws. Therefore one must write and preach them, until God co-operate and enlighten them, that they feel it in the heart as it sounds in the Word.

"Where now the law of Moses and the law of nature are one thing, there the law remains and is not abolished outwardly, except through faith spiritually: which is nothing else than to fulfil the law, Rom. 3, 28. Of this we need not speak now, and enough has been said elsewhere. Therefore images and Sabbath, and all that Moses has added over and above the natural law, since the natural law does not have it, is free, loose, and quit, and is given to the Jewish people alone in particular. Not otherwise than when an emperor or king in his land makes special laws and ordinances, like the Sachsenspiegel in Saxony, and yet the common natural laws nevertheless go through all lands and remain, such as honoring parents, not murdering, not committing adultery, serving God, etc. Therefore let Moses be the Jews' Sachsenspiegel, and let us Gentiles be unperplexed with it. Just as France does not regard the Sachsenspiegel, and yet agrees well with it in the natural law, etc.

"Why then does one teach and keep the ten commandments? Answer: Because the natural laws are nowhere so finely and orderly set down as in Moses. Therefore one rightly takes the example from Moses. And I wish that men would also take several more in worldly matters from Moses, such as the law of the bill of divorcement, and the year of jubilee, and the year of release, and the tithes, and the like, by which laws the world would be better governed than now with interest, buying and selling, and marrying. Just as when one land takes an example from the laws of another land; as the Romans took the twelve tables from the Greeks.

"That the Sabbath or Sunday is also kept is not necessary, nor for the sake of Moses' commandment; but because nature also gives and teaches that one must now and then rest one day, that men and cattle may be refreshed: which natural cause Moses also sets in his Sabbath, whereby he places the Sabbath among men, as Christ also does, Matt. 12, 1 ff. and Mark 3, 2 ff. For if it is to be kept only for the sake of rest, it is clear that whoever does not need the rest may break the Sabbath, and rest on another day instead, as nature gives: it is also to be kept for this reason, that one may preach and hear God's Word."

2. In Luther's Letter against the Sabbatarians of the year 1538 it says, §§ 64—67, thus:

"So the third commandment concerning the Sabbath, upon which the Jews pride themselves so highly, is in itself a common commandment of all the world; but the adornment with which Moses adorns it and appropriates it to his people is laid upon no one but the Jews alone in particular; just as in the first commandment none but the Jews alone are specially to believe and confess that the common God of all the world has led them out of Egypt. For the proper meaning of the third commandment is, that on that day we should teach and hear God's Word, that thereby we may sanctify both the day and ourselves. As indeed also at all times thereafter down to this day, among the Jews on the Sabbath day Moses and the prophets have been read and preached. But where God's Word is preached, it follows of itself that of necessity one must at the same hour or time keep holiday and be still, and without all other business only speak and listen to what God says, and teaches us or speaks with us.

"Therefore it lies altogether and wholly in this,