15. To create and stimulate this hunger and thirst in us, and to
bring us to the attainment of full knowledge, God kindly sends upon
his Christians temptation, sorrow and affliction. These preserve them
from carnal satiety and teach them to seek comfort and help. So God
did also in former ages, in the time of the martyrs, when he daily
suffered them to be violently seized in person and put to death by
sword, fire, blood and wild beasts. In this way he truly led his
people to school, where they were obliged to learn to know his will
and to be able defiantly to say: "No, O tyrant, O world, devil and
flesh, though you may injure me bodily, may beat or torment me,
banish me or even take my life, you shall not deprive me of my Lord
Jesus Christ--of God's grace and mercy." So faith taught them and
confirmed to them that such suffering was God's purpose and immutable
will concerning themselves, which, whatever attitude towards them he
might assume, he could not alter, even as he could not in the case of
Christ himself. This discipline and experience of faith strengthened
the martyrs and soon accustomed them to suffering, enabling them to
go to their death with pleasure and joy. Whence came, even to young
girls thirteen and fourteen years old, like Agnes and Agatha, the
courage and confidence to stand boldly before the Roman judge, and,
when led to death, to go as joyfully as to a festivity, whence unless
their hearts were filled with a sublime and steadfast faith, a
positive assurance that God was not angry with them, but that all was
his gracious and merciful will and for their highest salvation and
bliss?
16. Behold, what noble and enlightened, what strong and courageous,
people God produced by the discipline of cross and affliction! We, in
contrast, because unwilling to experience such suffering, are weak
and enervated. If but a little smoke gets into our eyes, our joy and
courage are gone, likewise our perception of God's will, and we can
only raise a loud lamentation and cry of woe. As I said, this is the
inevitable condition of a heart to which the experience of affliction
is unknown. Just so Christ's disciples in the ship, when they saw the
tempest approach and the waves beat over the vessel, quite forgot, in
their trembling and terror, the divine will, although Christ was
present with them. They only made anxious lamentation, yet withal
cried for help: "Save, Lord; we perish!" Mt 8, 25. So also in the
time of the martyrs, many Christians became timid and at first denied
Christ from fear of torture or of long confinement in prison.
17. It is God's will that we, too, should learn to accustom ourselves
to these things through temptation and affliction, though these be
hard to bear and the heart is prone to become agitated and utter its
cry of woe. We can quiet our disturbed hearts, saying: "I know what
is God's thought, his counsel and will, in Christ, which he will not
alter: he has promised to me through his Son, and confirmed it
through my baptism, that he who hears and sees the Son shall be
delivered from sin and death, and live eternally."
18. Now, what Paul calls being filled with the knowledge of the
divine will in Christ through the faith of the Gospel, means faith in
and the comfort of the forgiveness of sins, since we have not in
ourselves the ability to fulfil his will in the ten commandments.
This knowledge is not a passive consciousness, but a living, active
conviction, which will stand before the judgment of God, contend with
the devil and prevail over sin, death and life.
19. Now, the heart possessing such knowledge or faith is kindled by
the Holy Spirit and acquires a love for and delight in God's
commandments. It becomes obedient to them, patient, chaste, modest,
gentle, given to brotherly kindness, and honors God in confession and
life. Thus it is increasingly filled with the knowledge of God's
will; it is armed and fortified on all sides to withstand and defeat
the flesh and the world, the devil and hell.
"SPIRITUAL WISDOM" DEFINED.
20. By way of explanation Paul adds the words, "all spiritual wisdom
and understanding." This is not the wisdom of the world. There is no
necessity to strive and to endure persecution for that which concerns
itself with other than spiritual matters. Nor is it the wisdom of
reason, which indeed presumes to judge of divine things, but yet can
never understand them; on the contrary, although it accepts them, it
quickly falls away into doubt and despair.
21. "Wisdom" signifies with Paul, when he places it in apposition
with "spiritual understanding," the sublime and secret doctrine of
the Gospel of Christ, which teaches us to know the will of God. And a
"wise man" is a Christian, who knows himself and can intelligently
interpret God's will toward us and how we perceive his will by
faith--growing and obediently living in harmony with it. This wisdom
is not devised of reason; it has not entered into the heart of man
nor is it known to any of the princes of this world, as Paul says in
1 Corinthians 2, 8-10. But it is revealed from Heaven by the Holy
Spirit to those who believe the Gospel.
22. But there is necessary to the full completion of wisdom something
which the apostle calls "understanding"; that is, a careful retention
of what has been received. It is possible for one having the
spiritual wisdom to be overtaken by the devil through a momentary
intellectual inspiration, or through anger and impatience, or even
through greed and similar deceitful allurements. Therefore it is
necessary here to be cautious, alert and watchful in an effort to
guard against the devil's cunning attacks and always to oppose him
with his own spiritual wisdom, that he may not be undeceived. The
Pauline and scriptural use of the word "understanding" signifies the
ability to make good use of one's wisdom; to make it effective as a
test whereby to prove all things, to judge with keen discernment
whatever presents itself in the name and appearance of wisdom. Thus
armed, the soul defends itself and does not in any case violate its
own discretion. To furnish himself with understanding, the Christian
must ever have regard to the Word of God, must put it into practice,
lest the devil dazzle his mind with some palaver and error and
deceive him before he is aware of it. This Satan is well able to do;
indeed, he uses every art to accomplish it if a man be not on his
guard and seek not counsel in God's Word. Such is the teaching of
David's example, who says in Psalm 119, 11: "Thy word have I laid up
in my heart, that I might not sin against thee." And again in verse
24: "Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counsellors."
23. A man may be familiar with God's Word, yet if he walks in
self-security, concerned about other matters, or if perhaps being
tempted he loses sight of God's Word, it may easily come to pass that
he is seduced and deceived by the secret craft and cunning of the
devil; or of himself he may become bewildered, losing his wisdom and
being unable to find counsel or help even in the most trivial
temptations. For the devil and reason, or human wisdom, can dispute
and syllogize with extraordinary subtlety in these things until one
imagines to be true wisdom that which is not. A wise man soon becomes
a fool; men readily err and make false steps; a Christian likewise is
prone to stumble; ay, even a good teacher and prophet can easily be
deceived by reason's brilliant logic. Essentially, then, Christians
must take warning and study, with careful meditation, the Word of
God.
24. We read of St. Martin how he would not undertake to dispute with
heretics for the simple reason that he was unwilling to fall into
wrangling, to rationalize with them or to attempt to defeat them by
the weapon of reason, the sole means whereby they pointed and adorned
all their arguments, as the world always does when opposing the Word
of God. The shrewd Papists today pretend, as they think, very acutely
to confirm and support all their antichristian abominations by the
name of the Church, making the idiotic claim that one must not effect
nor suffer any change in the religious teaching commonly accepted by
Christendom. They say we must believe the Christian Church is always
guided by the Holy Spirit and therefore demands our obedience. Notice
here the name of the Church, concerning which your spiritual wisdom
teaches according to the article: "I believe in a holy Christian
Church." But that name is distorted to confirm the lies and idolatry
of the Papacy, just as is true of the name of God. So there is need
of understanding, of careful, keen discernment, that wisdom be not
perverted and falsified, and man be deceived with its counterfeit.
25. By close examination and comparison with God's Word, the standard
and test, you may clearly prove the Papacy to be not the Church of
Christ, but a sect of Satan; it is filled with open idolatry, lies
and murder, which its adherents fain would defend. These things the
Church of Christ does not endorse, and to tax it with resolving,
appointing, ordering and demanding obedience to that which is at
variance with the Word of God, is to do the Church wrong and
violence.