# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1859_S66
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

66 On Church Language.

the Eutychian, Pelagian, Zwinglian, Calvinist, and Crypto-Calvinist,
Pietist, and other controversies lived and taught, and therefore often
make use of expressions that first became suspect in those very
controversies, and of which, therefore, no orthodox teacher afterward
readily makes use. Just as little as heretics can appeal, for their own
type of doctrine, to the old faithful witnesses and their manners of
speech, just as little would it be fair, on the ground of this agreement
in expression between older orthodox teachers and newer heretics, to
accuse the former of the same error, since from other passages their
pure faith is evident. Rightly, therefore, does Luther write in his
theological treatise "that in Christ the divine and human natures are so
united that Christ is but a single person," as follows: "Hence, in the
case of such lofty truths, which go beyond all reason, one must see to
it that the manner of speaking of the fathers, where necessity requires
it, is interpreted in a fitting way. For it is a godless and malicious
thing when, on account of inconvenient words, one wishes to saddle a man
with an error, though one knows well that in other respects he teaches
rightly. For in that way one will nowhere find a father of the church or
other teacher of the church who did not have inconvenient turns of
phrase, if one wishes to mishandle their words in that fashion. The very
Christian poet Sedulius sings: Beatus autor seculi servile corpus
induit — the most highly praised Creator of this world has put on the
form of a servant; and this is sung throughout the whole Christian
church. And yet, if one wished to quibble over words, nothing more
heretical could be said than that the human nature of Christ is the
garment of his deity; for the garment and the body that is in the
garment do not together make one single person, just as God and man in
Christ are one person. Nevertheless Sedulius's other poems prove that he
was a pure and orthodox teacher. Hence a heresy never consists in the
words, but in the sense which they carry, as St. Jerome quite rightly
maintained against his slanderers. On the other hand, one who has given
himself over to a perverted sense must not be tolerated, even if he
speaks correctly and diligently appeals to Scripture. For Christ did not
let the devils speak when they recognized him as the Son of God, because
they know how to disguise themselves as angels of light. So kind and
simple is the Holy Spirit that his own, even if they do not speak very
conveniently according to grammar, nevertheless say the truth as to
sense and meaning. On the other hand, the malice and wickedness of the
devil is so great that his own, even if they speak correctly according
to the rules of grammar, nevertheless speak no truth in the theological
sense. Here it may well be said: if you are a liar, then even the truth
that you speak will be taken for a lie.*) But if, on the other hand, you
gladly speak the truth, then even what happens to slip in

*) "If you lie," says Chrysippus, "you lie even when you speak the
truth."