# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 05 14_S148
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

148

Thirdly, they were admonished by the terrible judgment of GOD, when Zwingli was so miserably slain, as the histories and their letters bear witness, and with him some five hundred men, very fine people. Though they would at once interpret such an angry judgment as a token of grace, and extol Zwingli as a saint, who (like all saints, who must suffer much) was also slain innocent. What does it help? if GOD sends upon them still more plagues than He did upon Pharaoh, since they are of such a mind that they want to make of it mere holy suffering? even as the Jews now for fifteen hundred years interpret their suffering and misfortune also, and harden themselves thereby, though they are so terribly admonished. But I, who am certain that Zwingli (as his last little book testifies) died in great and many sins and blasphemy of God, cannot believe their interpretation.

Though I wish and would that GOD had used with him the saying of St. Paul, 1 Cor. 5, 5.: "To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus"; and 1 Cor. 11, 32.: "When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world." Oh! right heartily would I that it had gone with him according to these sayings: for his misfortune was and still is exceedingly grievous to me. If suffering is to be called holy and make holy, there must first be innocence and a good divine cause, as St. Augustine also says: Non poena, sed causa facit martyrem.*) Now they know well that Zwingli, over and above the blasphemy against the Sacrament, had also in worldly respects a bad cause, since he acted wantonly against the other party in the Straßelegen. So that it is quite likely he was judged according to this saying: Qui acceperit gladium, gladio peribit. Matt. 26, 52. Yea, so must we think and hold, let them interpret, say, and adorn what they will; the histories and their writings are against themselves.

*) Not the punishment, but the cause of the punishment makes a martyr.

They comfort themselves also (I hear it said) that they write many books and do great labor for the Church and on the Scripture. What does it help? since they falsify and pervert God's Word and Sacrament and will not hear? He that heareth not God, him He heareth not again, but his prayer is an abomination, Prov. 28, 9. The Jews also labor much in the Scripture, now for a good fifteen hundred years. Yea, what heretics have not labored much more with teaching and writing than the Christians? To the devil's martyrs (as one says) hell will be much harder to earn than heaven to the saints.

Since now so many and great warnings and admonitions of GOD have been utterly lost upon them; for my writing, which went out seventeen years ago, I can with good conscience and strong faith also boast of as divine admonition, besides the other two admonitions: so I am also not too mean for them to let themselves be admonished by me, when they boast loudly, for I also am a servant of Christ, as well, if not more than they, and have also labored in His Church before they did, I will not boast too highly; I must let them go and avoid them, as those self-condemned, Tit. 3, 11., who knowingly and wilfully will be damned, and have no fellowship of any kind with any of them, neither with letters, writings, words, nor works, as the LORD commands, Matt. 18, 17., be he called Stenkefeld, Zwingli, or what he will; for I reckon them all in one cake, as they also are, who will not believe that the LORD's bread in the Supper is His true natural body, which the ungodly man, or Judas, receives with the mouth just as well as St. Peter and all the saints. Whoever (I say) will not believe this, let him leave me in peace with letters, writings or words, and hope for no fellowship with me; there will be nothing else of it.*)

* Here Luther rejects with the same earnestness Calvin's as well as Zwingli's doctrine.

Herewith, my good friend, you have my reason why I would not hear the blasphemer, Schwenkefeld, nor answer him: this you may, if you so desire, point out to those whom perhaps Stenkefeld has befouled and bespattered against me. I (as said) am glad to have such blasphemers revile me, and that they are very angry at me; here is no one who cares about their wrath. If they dare to call the master of the house Beelzebub, what should they not blaspheme of his household? that is, if they dare to blaspheme our dear LORD JESUS Christ and give Him the lie in His words: "Take, eat, this is my body," etc., and pervert and twist His blessed comforting Sacrament into a peasants' drinking-bout: what should the most arrogant spirits not do to poor Luther?

In sum, they have been found out and overcome by me many times, as the manifest blasphemers and liars. First, when in the beginning they taught that it was nothing but mere bread and wine in the Supper. Whereupon they scolded and blasphemed us as flesh-eaters, blood-drinkers, Thyestes, Capernaites, our LORD the baked GOD, the breaded GOD, the winy GOD, etc., as the books bear witness everlastingly. What Christian heart can or will believe that the Holy Ghost, and not rather the wretched devil, is again and ever in them? since they interpret the clear words of the LORD: "Take, eat, this is my body," out of their own presumption and wantonness, according to their dream, that He is there spiritually and not bodily. For we know very well: although the "LORD Christ dwells in our heart by faith (as St. Paul teaches, Eph. 3, 17.)," which is called a spiritual dwelling, yet He has taken upon Himself no spiritual body nor blood, nor given it for us, as He says, Luke 24, 39.: "Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have," and yet dwells spiritually in our hearts.

Secondly, the texts which they have adduced, such as speak of the ascension and of the unprofitable flesh, I have clearly demonstrated that they have wrongly interpreted them and used them in a false sense, and so are caught in many gross lies, and in such open blasphemies and lies to this very day remain impenitent, hardened, obstinately persisting. So I should have to condemn myself, together with them, into the abyss of hell, if I should hold with them, or have fellowship with them, or keep silent about it, when I noticed or heard that they presumed upon or boasted of my fellowship; that, let the devil and his mother do or keep silent about, not I.

I will stand with the holy father Abraham and all Christians upon the saying, Rom. 4, 21.: "What God speaks, that He is able also to do"; likewise Psalm 51, 6.: "That thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest," and will not first take counsel of my reason, how it may agree or be possible that I should receive His body and blood with the mouth, and afterward, as a judge over GOD, interpret His words according to my fancy. No, I will not rave so; He has said it, I let it stand at that; if He leads me astray, then I am blessedly led astray. He has never once lied, nor can He lie. But the fanatics are open liars, found out by me and by themselves; and must also ever go on lying, because they trust their own fancy more than the Word of GOD.

And whoever will not do this, and will not stand upon this, or the like sayings, "what GOD speaks, that He is able to do"; likewise, "GOD cannot lie," etc., to him I faithfully counsel that he leave the Holy Scripture and the articles of the Christian faith in peace; for with his interpreting he makes himself a devil, the longer the more, and it is better for him that he remain a damned heathen, than that he become a damned Christian.

O, dear man! whoever will not believe the article in the Supper, how will he ever believe the article of the humanity and divinity of Christ in one person? And does it vex thee that thou shouldst receive the body of Christ with the mouth, when thou eatest the bread from the altar; likewise receive the blood of Christ with the mouth, when thou drinkest the wine in the Supper: then it must certainly assail thee much more (especially when the little hour comes), how the infinite and incomprehensible Godhead, which is and must be everywhere essentially, should be bodily enclosed and comprehended in the manhood and in the Virgin's womb, as St. Paul says, Col. 1, 19.: "In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

And how is it possible that thou shouldst believe how the Son alone became man, not the Father, nor the Holy Ghost, though the three persons are nothing else than the one GOD,