# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1864_S327
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Doctrine of the Lutheran Church Concerning Sunday. 327

heavenly voice, as they play their tricks. Indeed, if Carlstadt were to write
further about the Sabbath, even Sunday would have to give way, and the
Sabbath, that is, Saturday, would have to be kept: he would truly make
Jews of us in every respect, so that we would even have to be
circumcised, etc.
For this is true, and no one can prevent it: whoever holds a law of
Moses to be a law of Moses, or makes it necessary to keep it, must keep
all of them as necessary, as St. Paul concludes in Gal. 5:2, saying: Whoever
lets himself be circumcised is obligated to keep the whole law. So too,
whoever breaks images or keeps the Sabbath (that is, whoever teaches
that these are necessary to keep) must also let himself be circumcised, and
keep the whole of Moses; which, indeed (if one gave these spirits room),
they would truly in time be driven to do, to teach, and to keep. . . . You
might say here: Surely you will not say that the first commandment has
been abolished — one must indeed have a God? Likewise, one must
surely not commit adultery, murder, or steal? I answer: I have spoken of
the law of Moses as the law of Moses. For having a God is not the law of
Moses alone, but also a natural law, as St. Paul says in Rom. 1:20, that
the Gentiles know of the Godhead, that there is a God. This is proved
also by the fact that they set up gods and established acts of worship,
which would have been impossible had they known or thought nothing of
God; rather, God has revealed it to them through his works, etc., Rom.
1:19. That the Gentiles then failed to find the true God, and worshiped
idols in God's place, what wonder is that? The Jews too failed, and
worship idols in God's place, even though they had the law of Moses; and
they still fail, even now, regarding the Lord Christ, though they have
Christ's Gospel.
So it is also not the law of Moses alone: Thou shalt not murder,
commit adultery, steal, etc., but also the natural law written in everyone's
heart, as St. Paul teaches in Rom. 2:1. Christ himself, too, in Matt. 7:12,
sums up all the prophets and laws in this natural law: Whatever you
would have people do to you, do also to them; for this is the law and the
prophets. So too does St. Paul in Rom. 13:9, when he gathers up all of
Moses' commandments into love, which the natural law also teaches by
nature: Love your neighbor as yourself. Otherwise, if it were not written
naturally in the heart, one would have to teach and preach the law for a
long time before the conscience would accept it; it must also find and feel
it so within itself, or else no one would ever develop any conscience at all.
Although the devil so blinds and possesses hearts that they do not always
feel such law. Therefore one must write and preach it, until God works
along with it and enlightens them, so that they feel in their hearts what it
says in the Word.
Now where the law of Moses and the natural law are one and the
same thing, there the law remains, and is not abolished outwardly, except
spiritually through faith, which is nothing other than fulfilling the law,
Rom. 3:28. Of that there is no need to speak here, and it has been spoken
of enough elsewhere. Therefore image-worship and the Sabbath, and
everything else that Moses gave beyond and above the natural law,