BWC3k: Hearing the Word not better than reading; self-love; usury (L & G b)

      This continues from Part BWC3j in a series (Table of Contents in Part BWC1) presenting Walther's edition of Baier's Compendium of Positive Theology. — This segment begins Chapter VII, on the Law and the Gospel. — From pages 337-381: 

Notable Quotes: (Italics and bolding follow the original. All quotes not from Baier are from Walther's additions of quotes from third parties. Authors are indicated in bold text. Red text indicates my comments.)

[Chapter VII. Of the Word of the Law and the Gospel]

[Hearing the Word not better than reading the Word ; self-love; Usury]

337: Ad. Osiander: "that hearing the Word is a necessary requirement for introducing the ability to receive grace; whereas repentance and prayer are an inseparable fruit, which presupposes the Holy Spirit already dwelling"

338: Luther: "What is it that you run back and forth like this…as if there is no Christ to be found, and you will not be satisfied until you find Him in yourself and feel holy and sinless; nothing will come of it"

339: Gerhard: "what is said in Romans 10:17 ‘faith comes from hearing,' is not to be taken exclusively, as if hearing the preached Word is set in opposition to the reading of the written Word, but inclusively"…the same is and remains the Word, whether it is preached and heard, or written and read"

339-340: "Formula of Concord: "We believe, teach, and confess that the distinction of the Law and Gospel, as a particularly glorious light…by which the Word of God …is rightly divided."

340: Luther: "it is of the utmost necessity that these two words be rightly and properly distinguished; for where this is not done, neither the Law nor the Gospel can be understood, and consciences must perish in blindness and error."

342: Quenstedt: "in the Scriptures the name of the law is more often assigned to the gospel, but the appellation of the gospel is never attributed to the law."

343: Luther: "what is a more earnest, more terrible indication and preaching of God's wrath over sin than the suffering and death of Christ…the damned in hell will have no greater torment…than from this sight of the death of the Son of God…as also Judas the traitor, when he would not listen to the Lord Christ's friendly admonition and warning"

344: Luther: "some of the Fathers have taken from the words of this command [Matt. 22:39: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'] the delusion that an ordered love begins with oneself.…I understand the commandment to mean that it does not command self-love, but only the love of one's neighbor."

345: Luther: "beware of such heathenish teachings and sayings: ‘Be your own next;’ ‘Be your own nearest neighbor;’ and, ‘Each for himself, God for all,’ and the like; for they are false"

345: Quenstedt on Reformed vs. Lutherans on the numbering of the Ten Commandments: "The Calvinists place four commandments on the first table, making a second commandment out of the appendix to the first, and on the second table they place six…We consider that commandment, which is mentioned by the apostle as the first in the promise (Eph. 6:2), to be the first on the second table." [Cp. Reformed Michael Horton.]

347: Luther: "only the law of the Ten Commandments remains, which existed before Moses from the beginning of the world and among all the Gentiles"

349: Luther: "For the memorial images, or witness images, such as crucifixes and images of the saints, are also attested to above from Moses, that they are well to be tolerated" [E.g. stained glass images.]

350: Luther: "For the idols before God are no joke; they are the idols of the heart: false righteousness, praise for works, unbelief, and whatever else sits in the heart in place of Christ and His faith."

351: Augsburg Confession on women's head coverings: "for no one says that a woman sins if she goes out with her head uncovered, provided she does not cause offense."

352: A. C.: "These same errors have crept into Christendom…Some dispute about Sunday, saying that it must be observed, although not by divine right [nevertheless almost as much as by divine right] *) (*) Words of the first edition [of the A.C.]" [Walther's bolding.]

355: "For the Sabbath is observed among Christians…so that we assemble to hear and treat God's Word"

357: "The Sixth Commandment forbids adultery and all related (a) impurities, of deed…such as fornication, concubinage, incest, sodomy, etc."

363: Luther on Usury: "God, by frequently repeated emphasis, has generally and expressly condemned usury in the most atrocious terms.…In this way, usury is permitted in the Old Testament, that is, civilly; but it is condemned theologically, in the conscience before God."

365: Luther: "And when Scripture commands that we relieve the needy and destitute by a free exchange, it shows that this duty is not prescribed for those who are self-sufficient." [2 Thess. 3:12]

368: Gerhard: "the apostles observed and commanded the observance of abstinence from blood and from what was strangled…This was not because they believed these things pertained to the moral law and to all Christians of all time and place, but so that, ‘that the Jewish synagogue might be honorably buried’"

370: Gerhard: "As for the sacrifices of the Gentiles, they were not so much devised by them for the purpose of pleasing the incorporeal God, as they were borrowed from the Israelites out of a certain perverse κακοζηλία [bad imitation]." [Heathen sacrifices point to original sacrifices of the Jews!]

374: Luther: "The passage of John 10:35 nonetheless remains true, that 'the Scripture cannot be broken,' and Matthew 5:18, that 'not one letter or one tittle of the law shall pass away, until all is fulfilled.' Therefore, when I say: the commandment, the law, I may break, that is as much as to say, I may break its wrong interpretation (as David did) and hold the right one.…[StL 19, 1653; AE 44, 390]"

376: Hollaz: "The antithesis is that of the Anabaptists, Socinians, and Arminians, who assert that Christ is a new lawgiver, who made the moral law more perfect and completed it with new precepts."

380-381: Quenstedt: "the Papists, who hold that the perfect fulfillment of the law does not exceed the powers of the regenerate man…Thus the Council of Trent, session 6, chapter 18"

In the next Part BWC3l…