BWC2g: Last Judgment; Sin in General; Original Sin

      This continues from Part BWC2f in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. —  From pages 250–308.

Notable Quotes: (Italics follow the original. All quotes not from Baier are from Walther's additions.)

Last Judgment and Consummation of the Age:

251: Quenstedt: "Antithesis: 1. Of the Epicureans and mockers, who, upon hearing that Christ would return for judgment, with the Athenians and Stoic philosophers, scoff, Acts 17:32"

251: "there are no lack of signs by which God shows that judgment is drawing near in a certain way"

253: Gerhard: "Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, traced its [millennialism/chiliasm] origin back to the apostolic traditions,…it is by no means probable that the apostles would have handed down some things by word of mouth while committing others to writing."

254: Hollaz: Against millennialism: "…kingdom of Christ at the end of the world, because of the most corrupt morals of the wicked and the most bitter afflictions of the righteous, will be the most turbulent and the most sorrowful." [Today's world: "Corrupt morals" √,  "bitter afflictions of the righteous" √]

Antichrist:

257: "the adversary of Christ (the Antichrist) will be seated in the temple of God, that is, the Christian Church, as its head or monarch, after he has, by the power of Satan, with signs and lying wonders, deceived a great number of people and established his kingdom, so that for some time and by many, the nature or identity of the Antichrist will not be recognized; yet in its own time he will be revealed and acknowledged as the Antichrist. [by Martin Luther] However, even then the day of the Lord will not come immediately; rather, the Antichrist himself, now revealed, will continue on, until he is abolished by the brightness of Christ's coming. The revelation of the Antichrist to the faithful, therefore, should signify, like a sign, the following judgment, by which the Antichrist, now manifested, will finally be abolished."

258: Quenstedt: Lutheran theologians erroneously defending "universal conversion of the Jews": A. Hunnius, Hafenreffer, Menzer, Balduin, Meisner. [Surprising to me. Luther opposed. Also Walther.]

259: Gerhard: "Christ will administer that judgment not only as God, but also as man."

262: "For Christ will judge, so that to each one He will render a clear testimony according to the works of faith or of unbelief (2 Cor. 5:10; cf. Rom. 2:6 ff.; Matt. 25:35, 36, 42, 43; Rev. 20:12, 13)."

263: Scherzer: "The standard of this judgment will be the law and the gospel in one word, but with a different and properly noted respect. The gospel indeed with respect to the elect... The law, however, with respect to the reprobate, but so that it is illuminated by the light of the gospel."

264: "After the judgment is completed, the consummation of the world will immediately follow, in which the heavens and the earth, …by means of fire, will perish.…time will end along with it"

On Sin in General:

268: "concupiscence, being evil by nature; vicious habits contracted by wrongdoing; and all acts that are contrary to the law are customarily and correctly called sins."

269: Balduin: "…synteresis is the faculty of the soul, which always opposes vices and immediately points out committed evils, and thus always desires to keep the soul immaculate from sin. … Synteresis can never err; conscience sometimes errs in its judgment."

270: Kromayer: "A pre-Mosaic Decalogue could easily have been constructed. The first commandment may be found in Gen. 12:1–16:7: 'I am the God who brought you out…' etc.

271: "Christ purged the old law of the corruptions of the Pharisees"

273: Brute animals "are plainly devoid of the faculty to know what the law commands and forbids."

274: Calvinists "nevertheless hold that God is altogether the author and efficient cause of sins."

275: "In the Scriptures, however, sin is taken in a much broader sense, as 1 John 3:4 is content to define sin by ἀνομία (lawlessness), without expressly mentioning the voluntary element."

275: "Zwingli and Calvin, in chap. 3 of Genesis, who deny original sin for the same reason, that it is involuntary."

277: "the paternal chastisements of the pious must be carefully distinguished from what are properly called punishments." [Parental disciplining defended. Likewise God's chastisements of His people.]

278: Luther: "The thief [on the cross] turns around and accuses himself and confesses his sins,…a completely different person is made of him, and his shameful death, which he well deserved, now becomes a service to God, so that from then on he suffers not as a murderer, but as a true saint"

On Original Sin:

282: Gerhard: "Death has passed upon all men, because all have sinned, i.e., because Adam, the parent of the human race, representing the person of all posterity who descend from him by carnal generation, sinned."

282: Zwingli: "'Original sin is not properly a sin, but only a disease and an effect of sin.'"

283: "so, deprived of that original righteousness, man is like a dead man [Eph. 2:1], a being destitute of all the powers necessary to elicit and exercise vital acts and motions within himself"

285: Formula of Concord [Trigl. p. 883]: "the more diligently they labor in this matter to investigate and comprehend these spiritual things with the keenness of their own reason, the less they understand and believe, and they consider all of it to be foolishness and mere nonsense and fables, until they are enlightened and taught by the Holy Spirit."

285: "…Phil. 2:13. For when both of these [to will and to accomplish spiritual things] are attributed to God entirely, and we are therefore commanded to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, it is certain that this is denied to our natural powers"

289: "See Rom. 5:12, where one man, Adam, is declared the cause of sin as the common parent of the entire human race and its root and active principle, since through him sin came into the world."

293: "the woman, seeing that the tree was desirable for understanding, took of the fruit, verse 6 [Gen. 3:6]. Thus, the woman's will more eagerly desired that apparent good, promised by Satan"

297: "we deny that in a man infected with original sin, before he is reborn, there are any powers of the intellect or will such that… the will can determine itself to the good in spiritual matters."

300: Quenstedt: "Antithesis: The Papists, especially the Jesuits. For thus they assert in the Council of Trent, Session VI, Chapter 1: ‘Free will (in unregenerate men) is by no means extinguished’"

300: Quenstedt: "Antithesis:…Lutheran synergists, who posit some synergeia, or cooperation of human forces with grace, in the work of conversion. . . The seeds of this synergistic error were sown quite prolifically by Philip Melanchthon in his various writings and books.…In the Loci Communes of Philipp Melanchthon… inserted into the body of doctrine the definition of free will, which Luther reproved in Erasmus as erroneous" 

304: Luther: "in reality, however, he [Adam] sank his teeth into a thorn, which was the prohibition of God and disobedience to God."

306: Augustine: "When a certain man had fallen into a well… another man came up, and seeing him, said in admiration, 'How did you fall in here?' But he replied, 'Please, think about how to get me out of here, not how I fell in.'…it is enough for us to know the way by which it [an infant] is saved, even if we never know how it fell into that evil."

In the next Part BWC2h we conclude our quotes and provide downloads for Volume 2.

BWC2f: Temporal Death; Resurrection of the Dead

      This continues from Part BWC2e in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. —  From pages 223–250.

Notable Quotes: (Italics follow the original. All quotes not from Baier are from Walther's additions.)

Temporal Death:

223: Temporal death: "those things which, according to divine revelation, pertain to the end of this life and the entrance into the life or state that follows."

224: "death, which is the privation of the natural life of men, resulting from the separation of the soul and body."

224: Quenstedt: "the soul of the converted thief was with Christ in heaven, while his body remained on earth"

225: "Among the moral causes of death, the devil is to be counted first"

225: Meisner: "if death first proceeded from sin, it is not a consequence of nature as God created it, and so man was not created mortal from the beginning"

227: Satan "is rightly known as one who willed death"

228: "Natural cause of death is the radical consuming of moisture and the extinction of the native heat" [Age causes skin wrinkles, need for greater cold weather clothing, as I know from myself.]

230: "Christ, conceived by the Holy Spirit, was not subject to the necessity of death"

231: For believers "death is not a penalty…but an end of temporal misery and a transition to a better life"

231: Luther: "God, being angry, does not want to permit him [Adam] after the fall to return to that Tree [of Life], … Adam now had a better promise, that the seed of the woman [Christ] would crush the serpent's head, so that, although he was subject to bodily death, he might nevertheless retain the hope of immortality"

233: "the Papists, who…defend the invocation of saints. For thus the Council of Trent, Session 25:…'instruct the faithful concerning the invocation of the saints'"

235: Dannhauer: "Soul-sleep is a doctrine contrary to the sacred Scriptures"

236: Quenstedt: Souls kept in hidden repositories: "Roman pontiffs …, John XXII, …subscribed to and confirmed by decree, as the thing to be believed"

237: "purgatory, or the penal state of the faithful… not yet fully cleansed from sins in this life—should not be conceived as a middle state between life and damnation."

239: "The bodies of the deceased are to be committed to the earth with honor"

239: Quenstedt: "God Himself confirmed this custom of burying the dead, Deut. 34:6" [Against Cremation.]

240: "Beautifully Augustine: The earth did not cover many of the bodies of Christians,…which is filled by the presence of Him who knows from where to raise what He has created."

Resurrection of the Dead:

241: "Just as the human soul after death remains surviving, so also the body, which by death has been destroyed, will rise again and return to life"

242: "John XXIII, Pope of Rome, who, just as he denied the immortality of the soul, so also he denied the resurrection of the flesh"

242: "Resurrection consists in this: that the body, destroyed by death, is reproduced from the matter into which it was converted and is reunited to the soul"

245: "not only the pious and faithful, but also the impious and the infidels"]

245: "we do not exclude from this [resurrection] embryos that died in their mothers' wombs." [Abortion kills a human being.]

248: "They will also receive their sex, and all the parts or members they had in this life, not for the restoration of the old use, but for the integrity of the organic body"

In the next Part BWC2g…

BWC2e: Eternal Blessedness; Eternal Damnation

      This continues from Part BWC2d in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. —  From pages 181–223.

Notable Quotes: (Italics follow the original. All quotes not from Baier are from Walther's additions.)

Eternal Blessedness:

181: "a more distinct knowledge of that blessedness and of the clear knowledge of God cannot be obtained by the guidance of the light of nature, but must be learned from divine revelation."

181: Augustine: "This principally distinguishes Christians from the error of the Gentiles, that they believe not only in this life, but also in the future one."

185: Gerhard: "those whom they [the blessed] know to be eternally cast away from the face of God will not in the least desire any help or consolation for them from an inordinate affection"

187: "But the chief object of charity is God."

187: "the will [of the blessed], being perfectly determined and holy to the love of God, will not be able to fall away from God, nor sin."

188: "so that the holiness will be greater than that which had been bestowed upon the first-formed [Adam and Eve]."

189: "all of it [the good that blessed do] is precisely referred by them to the glory of God."

191: "all the faculties of the soul and the body itself must be perfected, so that it may be the beatitude not of the soul only, but of the whole man."

191: Luther: "It is not called a spiritual body for the reason that he should not live corporally, nor have flesh and blood; otherwise it could not be called a true body."

195: Gerhard: "Sickness and old age destroy beauty. But in the eternal life, neither sickness nor old age will have a place."

197: "a certain inequality among the blessеd will be discerned, according as one has given more proofs of Christian virtues than another in this life.…there will be no envy of differing glory there, where the unity of charity will reign in all"

199: Antithesis: Gerhard: "1. Modern Jews conflate the joys of eternal life with corporeal pleasures, food, drink, sex, etc.… 2. Muhammad in the Qur'an …promises the blessed in paradise splendid palaces, royal feasts, dances, and embraces of virgins"

201: Gerhard: "Antithesis: 2. Some of the Papists grant salvation to certain Gentiles who lack true faith in Christ. . . 3. The same doctrine pleased some Calvinists."

Eternal Damnation: 

203: Damnation is not "a mere absence of blessedness, but contains positive adversities and torments and the keenest sense of evils."

204: Gerhard: "If the impious were not to fear a punishment more severe than annihilation, it would not have been better for them not to have been born."

205: "the bodies of the damned will be incorruptible, …[which will contribute] to the increase of their misery,"

206: "although to know God pertains to the perfection of man, yet to know Him in this way is not of perfection, but of the gravest misery."

206: "Accordingly on the part of the will there will arise … hatred of themselves, since they will be the cause of their own misery"

207: "Finding no way to escape their evil, they seek and desire to die, or to cease to be altogether, or to be utterly destroyed, Revelation 9:6." [Beyond horror! The real Hell.]

209: "It is also certain that this fire will not be a spiritual one (for a fire so called would not be literal), but a material and corporeal one." [Fire burns.]

211: Gerhard: "It is better…to be concerned about fleeing from the fire, than to argue hatefully and idly about the nature of that fire."

211: Hafenreffer: "What are those torments? They are the most exquisite pains of mind and body"

212: Gerhard: "The eyes will be tormented by the sight of demons, the ears by the shrieking and groaning of fellow sufferers, the sense of smell by an intolerable stench…" [Need I continue?]

214: Scherzer: "As for the infants of Christians who die without baptism, this remains: it is not the deprivation, but the contempt of the sacrament that damns."

216: Christ "is, indeed, the executor of divine judgment, using divine authority and power, who will effectively command the wicked, as if accursed, to depart from Him into eternal fire…Matt. 25:41"

217: Gerhard: "Although only unbelief is the formal and adequate cause of damnation, nevertheless, the remaining sins should not be excluded …because they are the fruit and effect of unbelief"

218: Luther: "a Christian, even if he wanted to, cannot lose his salvation even by the gravest sins, unless he refuses to believe"

220: Chrysostom: "Let us not seek where it [Hell] is, but how to escape it."

221: "the punishments of all the damned…will be eternal"

221: "Not that they are to be finally annihilated, but that, remaining in existence, they will suffer punishment."

In the next Part BWC2f, Temporal Death.

BWC2d: Image of God; Providence

      This continues from Part BWC2c in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. —  From pages 143–180.

Notable Quotes: (Italics follow the original. All quotes not from Baier are from Walther's additions.)

143: "After the angels, men stand out most prominently in the assembly of creatures… that God created them in His own image."

143: "the other creatures…are indeed called very good, yet not created in the image of God."

145: "For the sense of the words is: 'Let us, who are several (persons), make man in our (one common) image.'" [Doctrine of Trinity taught in Gen. 1:26.]

147-148: "in Genesis 9 homicide … is established as punishable by death … any homicide implies a violation of the divine image, which was in the slain man" [Death penalty established by God.]

150: "This knowledge of Adam was excellent, full, perfect, and so great that no one among men after the Fall can acquire it for himself, either from the book of nature or from the book of Scripture."

153: "This is what the first parents in the state of integrity did not know, that they were naked, nor were they ashamed; that is, they were not in the slightest degree touched by any disordered concupiscence of the sensitive appetite (although the object that could entice was present [their nakedness]). Gen. 2:25"

154: Quenstedt: "The divine image…could be passed on to posterity, but not … for example, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit…inhabitation of the Holy Trinity is supernatural"

157: Luther: "But the things we accomplish in life are not made by the dominion that Adam had, but by industry and art. Just as we see birds and fish being caught by guile and fraud, so beasts are tamed by art."

158: "In the matter of knowledge of natural things, Eve seems to have yielded to Adam. And it is commonly taught elsewhere that Satan preferred to attack Eve as the weaker one."

158: "…but the woman is the image of God inclusively, i.e., not only, but in such a way that she is at the same time the image of someone else, namely, the man"

Providence of God 

161: "When, however, we speak of divine providence, the term refers to things distinct from and created by God, for which God takes care and promotes the welfare."

162 Dannhauer: "For it is plain that neither the world was created by chance and accident without a cause, nor did the admirable sudden harmony and concord of infinite things responding to mutual uses arise by chance from atoms." [Evolution is plainly fiction.] "If mortals were not distinguished from one another by certain features and a diversity of forms, a marvelous confusion would follow in daily life and human society. Indeed, no commerce could take place among them; and this would be the occasion for immense evils and monstrous crimes and the destruction of all, if husbands and wives could not recognize each other, nor friend from foe, nor children their parents, nor could fathers distinguish their daughters from outsiders or from their own wives by any sign." [Thank God that we (almost) all look different!]

165: "The pagan Pliny thinks the divine majesty is defiled if it concerns itself with despised things. But these are foolish thoughts, as the great church father Jerome also entertained."

172: Quenstedt: "Thus, when Eve reached out her hand for the forbidden fruit, God indeed sustained her locomotion, but did not assist the vicious act as such. "

173: God "reminds the sinners themselves of their own frailty, lest they become too self-pleasing and despise others… When 3) He permits the pious to be afflicted by the impious, He exercises the humility and patience of those afflicted, by the example of Job, chapter 1." ["Patience of Job."]

174: Quenstedt: "Praise be to God! that the world cannot run further than God allows; otherwise, there would be no end to its fury and rage against the godly."

176: Heerbrand: "although they [men] are governed by the providence of God, are not forced to do so"

177: "bloody and deceitful men are said to not live out even half their days (Ps. 55:23)"

178: God "shortens the lives of the [pious], … partly so that they may not see the calamities to come and be distressed." [O Lord, how distressing are the calamities of today!]

179: "God in just judgment more swiftly cuts off the lives of the impious, … a fatal disease …or permits them, through their own intemperance or other crimes, to bring on themselves diseases or violent death."

In the next Part BWC2e, Baier focuses on Eternal Blessedness and Eternal Damnation.

BWC2c: Angels

      This continues from Part BWC2b in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. — One gains a great respect for the Lutheran theologians and dogmatists of past centuries upon reading Walther's additions. — From pages 100–139.

Notable Quotes: (Italics follow the original. All quotes not from Baier are from Walther's additions.); Angels

Angels: 

104: "Christ Himself is preeminently the angel of the covenant in Malachi 3:1"

104: "Whenever and wherever either the name Jehovah or a divine attribute or work and divine worship is attributed to the angel appearing to the patriarchs…, there it must be understood that it is not some created angel, but the uncreated one.…, foreshadowed His future incarnation." [I.e., Christ Himself. Modernist theologians teach rationalist notions.]

105: Antithesis: Quenstedt: Papists "hold that God never appeared in person in the Old Testament, but always an angel in His stead." [See Thomas Aquinas.]

106: Quenstedt: "the ancient Greek Fathers…all asserted that angels were created before this visible world."

107: "Angels…are by their nature spirits, or spiritual or incorporeal substances, not composed of matter and form."

109: Angels "essence is not infinite, but finite".

110: "For we cannot attribute omniscience to them [angels]"

112: "For God alone claims for Himself an accurate and infallible knowledge of the human heart." [Not Angels. These points dispel fanciful notions about Angels.]

114: "angels cannot create something out of nothing, or raise the dead"

117: "The number of angels is great, but not definable by us. … Dan. 7:10" 

118: "evil angels are described as having an order among themselves, such as that of rulers and parents. For thus in Luke 11:25. Beelzebub is called the prince of the demons, and in Matthew 25:41, mention is made of the devil and his angels."

120: Angels "could not properly be said to merit their beatitude, but could obtain it only through God's grace, that is, His gratuitous and undeserved favor"

120: Angels "retained the freedom to act otherwise and to fail; which is evident from the subsequent fall of some.

121: Evil angels are "so confirmed in evil that they cannot return to goodness, do good, or refrain from sinning."

122: "Christ calls the devil a murderer from the beginning, and the father of lies, John 8:44, the first liar of all, and the cause of the defection of men from God"

125: All angels are "ministering spirits, spirits appointed to public service and performing it. Heb. 1:14".

126: Luther: "God has ordained three hierarchies against the devil, namely, the household, the polity, and the Church."

128: "See 1 Cor. 11:10, where Paul argues for women to observe modesty in their dress in sacred gatherings by appealing to the presence of angels, who love good order and decency."

129: "We read in Daniel 6:22 that an angel sent by God shut the mouths of the lions so that they could not harm Daniel, a chief minister of the kingdom, who was facing danger for the glory of God."

130: "Papists, who establish seven principal angels, to whom the care and governance of the Church and the whole world is assigned"

130: "Finally, it will be a special duty of the angels, which they will perform on the Last Day"

131: "it is not fitting to direct our prayers to the angels. For this is either impious and idolatrous, or at least useless and unwise."

132: "Papists, who generally contend that … prayers can rightly be offered to angels as mediators between God and men, and that they are to be honored with a certain cultus that is somewhere between civil and religious…" [See "Catholic Answers" here. Cp. the above with Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 267, #1024: “This perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity – this commun­ion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed - is called "heaven.”]

134: "For God did not grant angels, as He did men, a time and place for repentance, but utterly denied them the help of grace."

136: "the evil spirit, the one who works effectively in the children of disobedience, in unbelieving men"

138: Quenstedt: "For the state of possession, however, not only the devil's inhabitation but also his torture is required"

139: Quenstedt: "The proper signs of possession are: Knowledge of foreign or exotic languages…of hidden things…Strength greater than human…exact reproduction of the sounds of birds, sheep, oxen, etc.…"

143: "God is not only merciful, but also just, and that His justice, without satisfaction, is a consuming fire that reaches down to the lowest hell". [But man, not the evil angels, has the vicarious satisfaction of the Redeemer of all men.]

      Some may note that today's papist teachers may not necessarily hold to every un-Scriptural doctrine taught by their older teachers, such as on Angels. But they do not deny the Pope's power to make doctrine. — In the next Part BWC2d, the Image of God in Man.

BWC2b: Trinity; Creation

      This continues from Part BWC2a in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. — These quotes continue with the particulars of the incomprehensible, but Scriptural, mystery of the Trinity. — Creation is wonderfully treated in v. 2, examining every detail of the wording of the creation account. Also, on pp. 86-87, there is refutation of the Copernican Theory. — From pages 71–98:

Notable Quotes: (Italics follow the original. All quotes not from Baier are from Walther's additions.); Trinity, Creation.

71: Quenstedt: "According to the holy Fathers, the particle ἐξ [from] is attributed to the Father, διά [through] to the Son, and εἰς [in] to the Holy Spirit."

72: Quenstedt: "Although the Son is from the Father, He is nevertheless God with the Father"

73: Quenstedt: "Of certain Calvinists, who attribute to the Father a certain preeminence and superiority over the Son even with respect to deity"

74: Quenstedt: "The rule of Augustine is well known: 'The works of God ad extra are indivisible,' that is, common to all three persons."

76: Luther: "…the Symbol [Creed] of the holy Athanasius is founded, which is so framed that I do not know whether anything more important and glorious was ever written in the Church" [Defense of Trinity]

Creation:

77: Reusch: "But heaven, as heaven, and distinct from the total bodies of the world, such as planets, comets, and fixed stars or suns, consists of aether, which fills those vast spaces"

78: Luther: "Therefore, as for this opinion of Augustine, we hold that Moses spoke properly, not allegorically or figuratively" [As Luther would hold with Joshua on Joshua 10:13.]

80: Quenstedt: "The creation of the world from nothing in time cannot be known by natural light or… by philosophical arguments, but is known only from divine revelation, and is therefore an article of pure faith."

82: Quenstedt: "To define precisely where it [heaven] is, however, is rash."

83: Antithesis: J. H. Kurtz: "We already have, in pre-human times, an earth, and no less a history, which unfolded on and in it.…such sober and level-headed men as…Rudelbach, Guericke…have spoken in its favor." [Rudelbach and Guericke were thought of as orthodox!]

86: Walther quotes Hollaz, Calov, Rollius, and Hafenreffer against Copernicanism, i.e. Walther clearly held with the bare words of Holy Scripture on Joshua 10:13: "And the sun stood still…"

86: Antithesis: Deyling: "These forms of expression [e.g. Joshua 10:13] are what experts in the art are accustomed to call optical, and they distinguish them from physical truth."

88: Augustine: "Created animals that are harmful would have harmed no man, if he had not sinned."

88: Luther: God "did not say, as He did of other creatures, 'Let the earth bring forth man'; but, 'Let us make man'"

89: Luther: "For will you not judge it absurd that a man, who is to live forever, is born from a single drop of seed in his father's loins? There is almost more absurdity in this than in what Moses says, about the clay formed by the fingers of God."

91: "…the effect produced [of God's inbreathing, Gen. 2:7] was a spirit, distinct from the body and all matter.

93: Quenstedt: Eve "did not exist by immediate creation, but by propagation and transmission."

95: Luther: "…it does not say that Christ made the world through the Father, but that the Father made it through Him [the Son], so that the Father remains the first person and that from Him [the Father], yet through the Son, all things come"

97: Twesten: "Ex nihilo means: not from something, not from prior matter; it does not designate matter, but excludes it."

98: Philippi: "The concept of creation arose only on the ground of positive divine revelation, and where it is found outside this sphere (as in Mohammedanism, Rationalism), it is demonstrably borrowed from there."

98: Antithesis: Delitzsch: "The world, far from having been nothing before its creation, had an ideal existence in God, and its creation was the transfer from this ideal existence into a real one."

100: "so by the power of the divine blessing man is generated from man with regard to the soul just as much as the body by the universal concurrence of God alone"

101: Quenstedt: "If it is assumed that the soul is created immediately by God, either original sin must be plainly denied, or God cannot be freed from injustice, both of which are absurd"

In the next Part BWC2c, Angels.

BWC2a: Trinity explained, the Psalms are made clear

      This continues from Part BWC1d in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. — This post begins Volume 2, which is almost 50% larger than Volume 1. In this post, there is helpful instruction on the doctrines that are beyond our reason, such as the Trinity. — From pages 4–69: 

Notable Quotes: (Italics follow the original. All quotes not from Baier are from Walther's additions.); The Trinity.

4: Gerhard: "The name Jehovah…is commonly called the τετραγράμματον [Tetragrammaton], because it consists of four integral letters" [See Luther on this here in his writing Vom Schem Hamphoras.]

8: "…on account of the … doubts of our own minds, the arguments that prove the existence of God are not to be neglected."

10: Zwingli: "A pagan, if he fosters a pious mind at home, is a Christian, even if he does not know Christ."

14: Hafenreffer: "…it is, however, easier to explain what God is not than what He is."

15: Dannhauer: "one cannot say, for example: The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God; therefore the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three Gods"

15: Luther: "Who knows what is, that is called God? It is beyond body, beyond spirit, beyond everything that one can say, hear, and think."

18: Gerhard: "the simplicity of the divine essence, and the Trinity of persons are proposed to us in the Word"

23: Luther: "Nothing is so small, God is even smaller; nothing is so great, God is even greater"

26: Augustine: "God prepared hell for those who inquire curiously"

34: "Thus God, who wills what He does, is said to will and do for the sake of His own glory as an end"

37: Gerhard: "The Calvinists… say that God impels to sin, that God has made an absolute decree of reprobation"

40: Gerhard: "we prefer to speak thus: God wills some things, as good, and permits others, as evil."

42: Gerhard: "Things impossible to nature are those which surpass the accustomed course of nature, such as: for the sun to stand still…" [Gerhard stands against Copernicanism!]

43: Kromayer: "the Reformed, who are persuaded that God proposes nothing incomprehensible to reason for us to believe… and in other places of Scripture of the Old and New Testaments, that the motion of the heavenly bodies was hindered, Isa. 38:8"

46: Kromayer: "That in one divine essence there are three persons can be solidly proven from the Old Testament alone, without the aid of the New Testament."

48: Antithesis: Luthardt: "Only the New Testament actually revealed the divinity of the Messiah." [Refutes John 12:40-41; German theologians making shipwreck of the faith.]

52: Antithesis: Kahnis: "In and of itself, however, this name (Son of God) does not express the divine personality of Jesus Christ."

56: J. Ebart: "God subsists in three persons, not composed from them."

59: Augustine: "If you cannot find out what God is, yet be careful not to think of Him as that which He is not."

63: Dannhauer: ""For although something concerning the Logos and the Son of God may have emanated into paganism, those are nevertheless plagiarisms, stolen from Moses and the prophets." [Paganism stolen from true religion.]

64: Luther: "Therefore, mathematics and all the reasoning of the creature must be excluded from the belief in the Divinity." [Compare: Mathematics, the Loss of Certainty by Morris Kline]

66: Baier: "Thus in Psalm 2:7 God the Father says to the Messiah or Christ (see Acts 13:33): "You are my Son; today I have begotten you," where the word היום denotes the most present and unique moment of eternity, where there is neither past nor future."

69: Antithesis: Quenstedt: "that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone and in no way from the Son, an error which the Greek Church still to this day tenaciously defends"

In the next Part BWC2b…

BWC1d: Sacraments & Word differ, i.e. the Word remains forever; Papist: "Scripture is like a wax nose"; full download

[2026-08-29: Corrections given in vol. 4 have been added and download file now incorporate these.]

      This continues from Part BWC1c in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. — This post presents the concluding quotes from, and downloads of, Volume I.

Notable Quotes: (Italics follow the original. All quotes not from Baier were from Walther's additions.)

155-56: Baier: "the divine power and efficacy of the divine Word (not only preached, but also written) is indicated… from doctrine, received through hearing (the same principle applies to reading)." [Many in LC–MS deny the power of reading the Word.]

157: Quenstedt: "The nature of the sacraments and of the Word of God is different, because the nature of the sacraments consists in an action,… the Word, which remains forever even when those cease."

163: Quenstedt: "For us, Holy Scripture is so perfect and sufficient that it contains within itself, rather than pointing beyond itself, everything necessary to know for salvation."

165: Scherzer: "Christ (Matt. 15:9, 13) explicitly rejects human traditions."

169: Luther: "There is no clearer book written on earth than the Holy Scripture".

171-2: Baier: "lexicons, dictionaries, as well as grammatical books composed in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and other languages—are inventions of human ingenuity and belong among the gifts of nature, not among the gracious gifts of the Holy Spirit". [Dr. Robert Kolb adds "psychology and sociology" to this! See his lecture to the "Aus Lectures" in 2008 here.]

175: Quenstedt: "Ruard Tapper, whose insults and scoffs against Scripture are these: that Scripture is like a wax nose (which can be bent into any interpretation)".

177: Baier: "Although versions prepared by human study do not have canonical authority in the same way as the divine-inspired texts, insofar as they conform to them, they certainly contribute to attaining faith and its growth, and to excluding opposing errors." [Luther Bible 1545 (LED) does a good job!]

182: Hollaz: "Concerning the pure articles of faith, reason left to itself knows nothing, but is blind and gropes in darkness toward the mysteries of faith."

184: Quenstedt: "In the civil forum, indeed, no one can hold the parts of plaintiff, defendant, and judge. But in the divine judgment, God accuses through the law; He Himself is a suitable witness and judge. Christ says John 8:18: 'I am he that testifies of myself.'"

187: Luther: "To recognize and judge doctrine belongs to all and every Christian, and so that he is accursed who infringes upon this right in the slightest."

The following is my translated version utilizing DeepL, ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok. Highlighting and red text are mine. Italics and bolding follow the original. Hyperlinks added to each page number allowing immediate access to their respective pages in the original publication Download the above here, non-highlighted version here, PDF here, original languages here.

In the next Part BWC2 we begin presenting Volume II.

BWC1c: Scripture sufficient, Tradition not needed; Internal Testimony, TSSI, etc.; Apocrypha; Koran

      This continues from Part BWC1b in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. — Continuing our…

Notable Quotes: (Italics follow the original. All quotes not from Baier were from Walther's additions.)

80: Quenstedt: "Holy Scripture is sufficient by itself to prove all the dogmas of faith, and there is no need to add to it either the Roman Pontiff or the consent and authority of the Church, or human reason, revelations and private visions."

82: Quenstedt: "This principle of the pontiffs: 'Whatever the Roman Pontiff determines is infallibly true', first of all cannot be, it is clear from this, because they try to prove it from another source, namely from the Scripture itself, St. Matthew 16:18."

85: Balduin: "When even the regenerate want to argue about matters of faith from the principles of reason, then their reason is said to be corrupted."

 87: Calixt: “There are two principles: the authority of the divine law, and the tradition of the Catholic Church [i.e. Tradition, the theme of Prof. Biermann. Calixt was known to be heterodox.]…To this Kahn says: “When Calixt spoke of two principles in the Church, Scripture and Tradition, this was evidently at the expense of the Protestant principle of Scripture and was once again an approximation to the Roman Church.” [Dr. Benjamin Mayes incredibly argued otherwise! See here, p. 295 ff.]

91: Von Hofmann and his "I" theology: "But where do I find the faith by which I interpret the Scripture, if not in myself?"

95: Baier: "not only the sublime things that surpass the grasp of human reason, but also all the other things contained in Scripture, were inspired by God…"

96: Augsburg Confession: "Why does Scripture so often forbid making and hearing traditions?"

101: Antithesis: R. F. Grau: "the Holy Scripture…did not originate in a purely divine manner, as if the Holy Spirit, as the sole author, had dictated to the human writers, as mere scribes or instruments, both the content and the very words".

100-105: Walther quotes, in addition to the earlier Calvin, many later German "Lutheran" theologians in Antithesis to Baier's teaching of divine inspiration: R. F. Grau, Kahnis, Thomasius, von Hofmann, Luthardt, Delitzsch, Kurtz, Dieckhoff, and Philippi.

107: Chemnitz: "And so that the people of God might be certain that this Scripture was not brought by Moses by human will, but was divinely inspired, God, by very many stupendous miracles, attested to Moses's authority both before, after, and during the very writing."

110: Luther: "But the Jews, most pestilential of men, frequently pervert the meaning of the prophets by their points and distinctions"

115: Baier: "the reading of Scripture was also granted and commended to all indiscriminately, and this by divine command (Deut. 6:6–7)"

116: Quenstedt: "2. In the so-called Inquisition, nothing is more heretical and capital than the reading of the Bible."

119: Baier: "Holy Scripture does not derive its authority from the Church, since the Church was not its author"

122: Baier: "Scripture does not use the blandishments of words and the coloring of secular eloquence, adapted to captivate the minds".

126: Baier: "that the Holy Scripture so clearly and distinctly shows the way of reconciling a sinful man to God, which no other religion or writing teaches."

130: Baier: "As for the Muhammedan religion, it is a mixture of various religions, which is self-contradictory and, when compared with Christianity, is forced to submit". (Walther then gives a long quote from the Koran.)

135: Baier: "This full assurance is the benefit of the Holy Spirit, who, as Augustine says, has a chair in heaven and teaches hearts from within". [The internal testimony of the Holy Spirit, or TSSI in Latin: see Pieper, C.D. I, 313; Noland, Scaer, Tepker deny this teaching, calling it Calvinistic.]

136: Quenstedt: "A demonstrative regress is when we proceed from a confused cognition to a distinct one. When we prove the authority and divinity of the Holy Scriptures from the intrinsic testimony of the Holy Spirit, and from the Holy Scriptures we prove the testimony of the Holy Spirit, we do not commit a circle, but it is a demonstrative regress." [Another Lutheran teaches TSSI.]

138: Baier: "the testimony of the Church alone does not suffice; rather, the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit, or His operation, efficacious through Scripture itself, must also here concur."

142: Kromayer: "We believe that this writing is inspired not because of the testimony, but through the testimony of the Church." [Against the Papists.]

144: Chemnitz: "Thus Origen says that he learned from the paradosis (παραδώσει, by tradition) that the four Gospels are undisputed in the universal Church". [The place for "Tradition" in the Church.]

146: Hollaz: "Cicero gravely says in his speech Pro Archia Poeta: 'Greek is read in almost all nations, while Latin is confined to its own borders, which are indeed narrow.'"

149: Baier: Apocrypha "are not to be brought forward when the canonical Scripture is required; although otherwise they are not to be completely hidden, but are to be read profitably"

152: Chemnitz: "the Council of Trent, in its fourth session, decrees as follows: 'If anyone does not receive the entire books, with all their parts, as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition, for sacred and canonical, let him be anathema.'"

NOTE: Gemini reports the following Papist doctrines supported by the Apocrypha: 1. Purgatory and Prayer for the Dead, 2. Intercession of Saints, 3. Almsgiving as a Penitential Act, etc.. See also Mark Surburg's blog post of 4 years ago > HERE <.

In the next Part BWC1d we conclude the Notable Quotes from Volume I, then present the full text.

BWC1b: Non-fundamental doctrines, Antichrist; Papists made Luther "a fairly good theologian"

      This continues from Part BWC1a in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. — We are first greeted in this segment with very important words of Luther on the importance of the Doctrine of Justification, then we continue with my highlights…

Notable Quotes: (Italics follow the original. All quotes not from Baier were from Walther's additions.)

55: Gerhard: "Some things revealed in the Word are so arranged that they can be ignored without jeopardizing salvation, although they cannot be denied without the same danger"

57: Luther: "For in this (article on justification) everything hangs and stands, and it draws all the others along with it, and everything is for the sake of this one; that whoever errs in the others certainly does not have this one correctly, and even if he holds the others but does not have this one, it is all in vain. [LUTHER!; StL 8, 628–630; AE 24, 320–322]

59: Luther: "Do we not see in Augustine many errors, which he recanted? These would have all been damning to him, if he had not been preserved by faith… Whoever now follows them, follows to his own destruction."

63: Luther: "And I, a thoughtless fool [20 years ago], could not see the consequence that I would have to admit that if faith alone were sufficient, then monasticism and the Mass could not be".

63: Gerhard: "but whoever, after the scriptures have been published, would pertinaciously deny that there are any divine scriptures, he will be considered a heretic and excluded from the possession of salvation". [Prof. Biermann may not have denied that the Scriptures are divine, but his emphasis on "tradition" does just that.]

65: Baier: "even in these matters [non-fundamental articles], care must be taken not to sin rashly against divine revelation…For thus, as if through a mortal sin, the Holy Spirit and faith can nevertheless be and are shaken." [Example: Copernicanism.]

66: Quenstedt: "To this class we refer the doctrine about the Antichrist because of the prophecies of the Scriptures… "

67: Huelsemann: "the serious warnings of Christ and the Apostles in Matthew 7:24; Luke 12:42 ff., 17:35 ff., 21:8; 2 Thessalonians 2; 2 Timothy 3:4; 2 Peter 2; 1 John 2:4; Revelation 11:12 ff. contain admonitions about avoiding the snares of the Antichrist"

67: Huelsemann: "the doctrine of discerning the Antichrist from true teachers is no less necessary today than the doctrine on the malices and snares of the devils."

69: Luther: "One finds more heathen and human conceit than a certain holy doctrine of the Scripture among the theologians."

73: Luther: "For I myself … have a great deal to thank my Papists for, that they have beaten me, pressed me, and tormented me so through the devil's raging, that is, they have made me a fairly good theologian". [Luther: "a fairly good theologian"!]

75: Dannhauer: "the theologian, instructed with more resources, polished by more practiced senses, must see more in proportion to the degree of his talent and calling, and not only see, but also vindicate from false hermeneutics".

78-79: Kliefoth: "von Hofmann…recommends the path of speculative system-building…he seeks the simplest thing as a starting point, which is to unfold itself…while setting aside Scripture and church doctrine".

In the next Part BWC1c we continue with Notable Quotes from Volume I.