These things, most sturdy Ibex (for so you like to be called), you should have refuted, not skipped over. I plead the case by means of the Scriptures, not by means of shoutings. Hence you should have shown where I had misunderstood Scripture or had done it violence, instead of giving reasons why “Communing with” has the first letter written in red ink, and other trifles of that sort. I had previously discussed such matters with learned men,t and had decided they were only trifles. But now prove even one of the above propositions erroneous and you will have accomplished something. But I hope that when you see the firm and strong foundation of Christ’s church you will recede from your former error, become its friend, and join to it all your fortunes.
The Intercession of Saints]
When you write about the intercession of saints, you are so shallow, not to say foolish, that I am convinced you absolutely failed to understand what I wrote, which is indeed of small compass, because I had pursued the subject at greater length elsewhere, but of no small dignity, because it savors only of the pure sense of the word of God. “Therefore I will for your benefit reduce it to brief form, but in such a way that what is now given briefly shall throw some light upon the earlier writings, which it is impossible to cut down.
I. God alone is good, Luke 18: 19.
II. From this one and only source one must derive whatever good is needed. For every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, James 1: 17.
In the Canon of the Mass these words begin the prayer in commemoration of the dead.
tA reference to the two Zurich disputations of the year 1523.
iThis entire section was copied into the True and False Religion. See. 268. i In his Auslegen und Gründe der Schlussreden. (Egli- Finsler, II, 157-
[230 and in his Epichiresis (Egli-Finsler, II, 574-587).]
III. The faithful are distinguished from the unfaithful by this mark: the faithful depend upon this One and Only Good, cling to Him alone, resort to Him alone, draw from Him alone; on the contrary, the unfaithful turn from the Creator to creatures, depend upon them, and hope for aid from them. Deut. 32:39: “See that I am the only one, and that there is no god except me.” Now, to be God is nothing else than to be the Highest Good. ‘To be the Highest Good is nothing else than to be “dai” [ v1], i. e, the sufficiency of every good. That this Good, then, is Himself, God shows to us by the fact that He is the author of all good, aid, assistance; that only He is the Good, that there is no god, i. e., good, and no fountain of any aid except Him. As testimony to the latter fact you have Jer. 2:13: For my people have committed two evils: they have left me, the fountain of living water, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”
IV. The only faithful ones, then, are those who are so filled with the knowledge that they are God’s that they do not even name any father except the Almighty Father, so far are they from having hope in another. For of what avail is it to call God Father, if you are not His son and if you do not hope in Him as Father; especially since the Master forbids us to call any man father on the earth? Matt 23:9. For it is he alone who renders us secure in the hope which we have in him, Ps. 4: 8: “For thou, Lord, alone madest me to dwell in hope.” “Blessed be the man whose hope is the name of the Lord,” Ps. 40:4. And, contrariwise: “Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord,” Jer. 17: 5. Furthermore, he departs from the Lord who seeks elsewhere than with Him for the good which he needs; unless, indeed, it is not an instance of departing when a son deserts his real father and chooses another to whom he may flee and complain about his troubles, and from whom he may receive help. But the Heavenly Father is our Father because He made us, created us, chose us to be a peculiar people, Deut. 32: 6. For is not He your Father who took possession of you and made and created you? They, then, are sons of God who have Him for a Father; and those have Him for a Father who recognize Him alone as Father, depend upon
Him, hear Him only, hope all things from Him only.
v. 1. In the next place, that one may without hesitation flee to Him for safety He has Himself everywhere declared in the plainest terms. In Gen. 15: 1 He speaks thus to Abraham: “I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.” The same sort of thing was said to all who with Abraham were faithful: e. g., Lev. 20: 8: “I am the Lord who sanctify you”; Num. 35:84: “I am the Lord who dwell among the children of Israel”; Ps. 35:3: “I am thy salvation”; Isa. 43: 25: “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake”; Ezek. 18: 13-32: “Why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. Turn yourselves and live”; Isa. 44: 21-22: “Remember these things, O Jacob and Israel, for thou art my servant,” ete. “1 have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins. Return to me, for I have redeemed thee”; also 55:1: “All ye that thirst, come ye to the waters,” ete. Throughout there is nothing but God’s free invitation to Himself. And in Lev. 26:40-42 He promises favor even to those who had so greatly offended that they were led away into captivity, if only they cried to Him. These few citations from the Old Testament may suffice. For what is anywhere said but that the people should hasten to the true God, should not separate their hope from Him, nor imagine that they would find safety anywhere but with the Heavenly Father, who so often did great and good things for the fathers. For to everyone God is that which he thinks is sufficient to bestow upon him his heart’s desire.