Prayer for Comfort in Adversity

Johann Gerhard, Meditations on Divine Mercy, pp. 121-122:

Prayer For Comfort in Adversity and True Peace of Conscience

O KINDEST FATHER, God of all hope and comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3), grant to me life-giving comfort and true peace of conscience in all the difficulties of life. My heart is full of anxieties, but Your comforts are able to delight my soul (Psalm 94:19). All the comfort of the world is empty and futile. In You alone is strength and support for my soul. All sorts of misfortunes weigh heavy on me, but Your encouragement and comfort lighten the burden. Nothing in all creation can bring me down and sadden me so much that You cannot gladden me by Your Spirit of joy (Psalm 51:12). No adversities can so surround and capture me that my heart cannot be freed by Your grace. The heat of various afflictions harasses me, but the taste of Your sweetness brings me cool consolation. The tears stream from my eyes, but Your gracious hand wipes them away (Revelation 7:17). Just as You allowed Stephen, the first martyr, to see Your gracious face even as he was being stoned (Acts 7:56), so also You allow me, wretch that I am, the full enjoyment of Your comfort though I am surrounded by misfortune. Just as You sent a consoling angel to Your Son in the most bitter agony of death (Luke 22:43), so also You send me Your sustaining Spirit in my struggle. Without Your strength, I would break under the weight of the cross. Without Your help, I would be destroyed by the attack of numerous adversities.

Extinguish in me the love of the world and created things so the misfortunes of the world and the changeableness of created things will bring me no bitterness. Those who in their hearts cling to the world and created things will never be able to partake of true and undisturbed peace. All earthly things are subject to the continual variations of change. Those who do not cling with undue love to the things of this present life will not be tormented by overwhelming anxiety when these things are lost. Please, O God, cast out the love and desire of the world so that as You filled the widow's jar through the prophet Elijah, the soul forsaken of earthly comfort may be filled with the oil of joy (2 Kings 4:3; Psalm 45:7). All earthly things may be thrown into disorder, changed, and rolled back and forth, but You are the immovable rock and most solid stone of my soul. Can a beggarly and weak "thing" disturb the peace of the soul that I possess, that is sure and immovable in You (Psalm 73:25)? Can the waves of the world, even of its most turbulent seas, overthrow the rock of my heart (Psalm 18:2; 19;14), which I have firm in You, the highest and unchangeable good? Surely Your peace surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7). That same peace also will overcome every attack of misfortune. I beg You with humble sighs for that inner peace.

AMEN.

The Bride of Christ

Johann Gerhard, Sacred Meditations 23:

XXIII. Concerning the dignity of the Church.

The Church is the Bride of Christ.

Contemplate, devout soul, how much benefit God has furnished for you, since He has called you into the consortium of His Church. “My love is one,” the Bridegroom says in the song (Song of Solomon 6:8). It is certainly one for there is one true and orthodox Church, the beloved bride of Christ. The Spirit of Christ is not found outside of the body of Christ. Whoever does not yet have the Spirit of Christ is not his (Romans 8:9). Whoever is not Christ’s, is not able to become a participant in eternal life. All outside of Noah’s ark were forced to perish in the flood. Outside of the spiritual ark of the Church, all are destined for eternal destruction. Whoever does not have the Church as his mother on the earth will not have God as his Father in heaven. Contemplate, devout soul, how many thousands of souls descend into hell every day because they are outside of the bosom of the Church. It is not your nature that differentiates you from them, but only the grace of the merciful God. When the Egyptians were enveloped in complete darkness, the Israelites alone were in the light (Exodus 10:23). So also, only in the Church is the light of the knowledge of the divine found. Whoever is outside of the Church passes from the darkness of ignorance in this present life into the darkness of damnation in the subsequent life. Whoever does not have a share in the Church militant will never have a share in the Church triumphant. The following things are indeed most intimately joined: God, the Word, faith, Christ, the Church, and eternal life.

The holy Church of God is a mother, a virgin, and a bride. She is a mother because every day she gives birth to spiritual sons for God. She is a virgin because she keeps herself blameless from any association with the devil and the world. She is a bride because Christ has betrothed her to himself by an eternal covenant and given her the pledge of the Spirit. The Church is that ship that carries Christ and his disciples (Matthew 8:23) and transports us at long last to the port of eternal blessedness. The Church navigates her established course through the sea of this age with the rudder of faith, having God as her pilot, angels for oarsmen, and the company of all the saints for her passengers. In the middle of her, her mast is the cross of salvation, on which is suspended the sail of the evangelical faith, by which she is lead by the breath of the Holy Spirit to the security of eternal rest. The Church is that vine that God has planted in the field of this world, watered with His own blood, surrounded with the protection of angels, having constructed the winepress of his own passion in her, having removed the stones and offensive things from her. The Church is that woman clothed with the sun (Revelation 12:1) because she is clothed with Christ’s righteousness. She tramples the moon underfoot because she despises the world, which is subject to manifold changes.

Contemplate, devout soul, this dignity of the Church and give the thanks owed to God. Indeed, the benefits that God grants through the Church are great, but they are not obvious to everyone. It is like a closed garden and a sealed fountain (Song of Solomon 4:12). Therefore, no one recognizes these highest blessings in the Church unless he himself is in it. This bride of Christ is black on the outside, but beautiful inside (Song of Solomon 1:5). Certainly all the glory of the daughter of the king is inside (Psalm 45:14). This ship is struck with various storms of persecution (Matthew 8:25). This vine is lifted up by being bound and enlarged by being cut back (John 15:2). The infernal dragon himself plots against this woman in many ways (Revelation 12:7). The Church is as beautiful as a lily, but a lily between thorns (Song of Solomon 2:1). The most beautiful garden is the Church, but only when the north wind of tribulation blows through it do its aromatic spices at last flow out. The daughter of God is the Church, but she is completely hated by the world. She expects a heavenly inheritance. Forced to live as a foreigner in this world, opposed in her sojourn, silent in suppression, courageous in silence, she conquers in fortitude. The Church is the spiritual mother, but she is forced to stand under the cross, just as Mary, from whom Christ was born into this world, was standing under the cross (John 19:25). The Church is a palm tree because she grows all the more under the weight of tribulation and temptation.

Contemplate, devout soul, the dignity of the Church, and beware lest you engage in anything unworthy of her. The Church is a mother, so beware lest you despise her voice. She is a mother, so you ought always to cling to her breasts. The Church’s breasts are the Word and Sacraments. The Church is a virgin. If then you are really her son, abstain from the embraces of the world. You are a member of the virgin. See to it that you do not associate the members of the virgin with prostitutes and with Satan through sin. You are the bride of Christ. See that you do not send away the pledge of the Holy Spirit that has been given to you. You are the bride of Christ. Pray without ceasing so that the Bridegroom may hurry to bring you into the heavenly marriage banquet. For the Bridegroom may come in the safety of the night. Be vigilant therefore lest the Bridegroom will come and find you sleeping and close to you the door of eternal salvation (Matthew 25:10). Shine with the oil of your faith, lest in the coming of the Bridegroom you may be forced to wish for it in vain. You have been carried in a ship. See that you do not throw yourself into the sea of the world (Matthew 8:25) before you arrive at port. You have been carried in a ship. Pray, lest you be absorbed by storms of affliction and the waves of temptation. You are called into the Lord’s vineyard (Matthew 20:1). See that you labor strenuously. Let the thought of the denarii ease the labors of the day. You are the vine of the Lord. Throw away all the worthless branches, all the fruitless works of the flesh. Regard all the time of your life as a time of pruning. You are a branch in the true vine (John 15:1). See to it that you remain in it and bear much fruit, because the heavenly farmer takes away the branches that do not bear fruit and purifies them, in order that they may bear more copious fruit. You have clothed yourself by faith (Galatians 3:27) and you have been covered with the Sun of righteousness (Malachi 4:2; Revelation 12:1). See to it then that you tread the moon, that is, all earthly things underfoot and esteem all these things lightly in respect to the good things of heaven.

O good Jesus, who has led us into the Church militant, lead us also at long last into that Church triumphant.

Lutheran Resistance to Tyranny

The Reformed owe a debt to their Lutheran brethren for articulating early on a Biblical theory of resistance to tyranny, as found in two particular works which have been shown to have influenced the Huguenot resistance theory of Theodore Beza, for example.

1) Von der Notwehr Unterricht, Nutzlich zu Lesen (Instruction Concerning Self-Defense, Necessary to Read) by Justus Menius (1547, with editing done by Philipp Melanchthon; 1547, 2nd. ed. by Melanchthon). The second edition, which was popular in its day, includes sections titled "Instruction Concerning Self-Defense," by Menius, "How Self-Defense is a God-Pleasing Work," and other sections dealing with both passive disobedience of unlawful commands, and active resistance, up to and including tyrannicide. First published during the 1546-1547 Schmalkaldic War, the violent conflict between forces of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the Protestant Schmalkaldic League, this treatise helped articulate the Lutheran grounds for resistance to the Emperor (the work was not limited to civil and political resistance though; it speaks to resistance to the head of household when he acts tyrannically as well). It built upon the earlier writings of Martin Luther and others who found grounds to resist higher authorities in Luther's Of Temporal Authority: to What Extent it Should be Obeyed (1523), for example. Melanchthon wrote, "In the Warning [to his Dear German People] and in other writings, Dr. Martin Luther declared that defense was just" (quoted by Luther D. Peterson, "Melanchthon on Resisting the Emperor: The Von der Notwehr Unterrichte of 1547," in Jerome Friedman, ed., Regnum, Religio et Ratio: Essays Presented to Robert M. Kingdon, p. 143). Not only did Melanchthon justify constitutional resistance by lesser magistrates to superior tyrants, but in the section on "Who may lead resistance?" he also left the door open to permit individual active resistance to tyranny on basis of natural law providing the right of self-defense to all (giving as noble examples of this Obediah who hid the priests from Queen Jezebel; William Tell; Thrasybulus, who led the resistance against the thirty tyrants of Athens; Pelopidas, who saved Thebes from the Spartans; and even the wife of the cruel tyrant Alexander Pheraeus, who killed her husband), while at the same time condemning "Beruff" (unjustified rebellion) "violence carried out without a calling...and intended to raise oneself up" (ibid, p. 141).

2) Though militarily, the Schmalkaldic War ended in defeat for the Protestant cause, the Reformation would not be crushed by force. The ensuing dissatisfaction with the 1548 Augsburg Interim would lead to the 1555 Peace of Augsburg, embedded the principle of Cuius regio, eius religio ("Whose realm, his religion"), the idea that the religion of the civil magistrate dictated the religion of his jurisdiction. Yet, in 1550, the Magdeburg Bekenntnis Confessio et Apologia Pastorum et Reliquorum Ministorum Ecclesiae Magdeburgensis, more commonly known today as the Magdeburg Confession, articulated the position of Lutheran pastors of Magdeburg, who refused to submit to the Augsburg Interim, which Emperor Charles V attempted to enforce militarily by besieging the city. The Confession was one of many tracts and pamphlets issued in defense of Lutheran freedoms, and the most influential. Although a complete published English translation of this document is lacking, it has been discussed by Robert M. Kingdon, "The First Expression of Theodore Beza's Political Ideas," Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 46 (1955); David Mark Whitford, Tyranny and Resistance: The Magdeburg Confession and the Lutheran Tradition; and John Witte, Jr., The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism. Whitford describes the document:

The Confession begins with a one-page "Short Summary of the Contents of this Book," followed by an 11-page "Introduction." The body of the treatise is divided into three sections. The first section (chapters 1-7) recapitulates the main doctrinal loci of the Augsburg Confession. The second section discusses resistance theory, and the third section provides a warning to those who oppose Magdeburg's actions.

The Confession emphasizes the duty of lesser civil magistrates to interpose, or resist the tyrannical conduct of higher magistrates, in defense of the people under their care.

We will show from Holy Scripture that if a higher magistrate undertakes by force to restore popish idolatry and to suppress of exterminate the pure teaching of the Holy Gospel, as in the present instance, then the lower god-fearing magistrate may defend himself and his subjects against such unjust force in order to preserve the true teaching, the worship of God together with body, life, goods, and honor. The powers that be are ordained of God to protect the good and punish the bad (Romans 13), but if they start to persecute the good, they are no longer ordained of God. There are to be sure degrees of tyranny and if a magistrate makes unjust war upon his subjects contrary to his plighted oath, they may resist, though they are not commanded to do so by God. But if a ruler is so demented as to attack God, then he is the very devil who employs mighty potentates in Church and State. When, for example, a prince or an emperor tampers with marriage against the dictates of natural law, then in the name of natural law and Scripture he may be resisted.

Praise be to God. Because He lives we also shall live and be exalted since now we suffer with Him and for His sake we are killed all the day long (Psalm 44).
...
If the high authority does not refrain from unjustly and forcibly persecuting not only the lives of their subjects but even more their rights under divine and natural law, and if the high authority does not desist from eradicating true doctrine and true worship of God, then the lower magistracy is required by God's divine command to attempt, together with their subjects, to stand up to such superiors as far as possible. The current persecution which we are suffering at the hands of our superiors is primarily persecution by which they attempt to suppress the Christian religion and the true worship of God and to reestablish the Pope's lies and abominable idolatry. Thus the Council and each and every Christian authority is obliged to protect themselves and their people against this.

This Confession was very influential in the thought of Theodore Beza, who wrote in his 1554 treatise Concerning Heretics that a "signal example of [interposition by lesser magistrates against superior tyranny] has been shown in our times by Magdeburg, that city on the Elbe." Later, in 1574, Beza describes his famous treatise on The Rights of Magistrates explicitly as a "'revision' or 'reprint' of that treatise 'published by those of Magdeburg in 1550 and now revised and augmented with several reasons and examples'" (Whitford, Ibid, p. 61). Whitford goes on to sum up the significance of this connection:

The connection between The Magdeburg Confession and Theodore Beza places the Confession at the center of the debate over political resistance in Reformation thought. The Magdeburg Confession is, therefore, one of the most important documents of the Reformation on political theology, and it played a key and positive role in the development of resistance theory.

Catechetic and Acroamatic Theology; or, Milk and Meat

Luther Poellot, trans. and ed., The Nature and Character of Theology: An Introduction to the Thought of J.A. Quenstedt from Theologia Didactio-Polemica Sive Systema Theologicum, pp. 43-47:

Thesis XVI

The theology of indirect revelation, or of institution, is either catechetic, initial, or more elementary (which is also called [theology] of babes, of novices and beginners) or profound, advanced, or more detailed (which is also called [theology] of the mature [or] established).

Thesis XVII

Catechetic theology is that which singles out only the chief heads of Christian doctrine and trains the unlearned common people in them. Hence it is also called elementary or initial, because it teaches the first elements and rudiments of Christian religion and is chiefly concerned with laying the foundations of the doctrine of faith. This kind of teaching was once called catechesis and catechism, the teachers themselves were called catechists, the learners [were called] catechumens, [and] the action itself was called instruction or catechization, 1 Co. 14:19; Gl 6:6; Acts 18:25.
...

Thesis XVIII

Acroamatic theology is that which teaches [and] establishes the mysteries of faith in greater detail and at greater length and refutes errors against sound doctrine, and it is [the theology] of the bishops and presbyters in the church, and especially of those who in the schools teach not simply Christians but future teachers of Christians and are called chief theologians.

Note: Catechetic theology differs from acroamatic not in the matter considered but by reason of the object and way of considering [it]....

Thesis XIX

In regard to manner of presentation, acroamatic theology is either exegetic, or didactic strictly so called, or polemic, or homiletic, or casual, or finally historical.

Thesis XX

Exegetic theology, which [is] also Biblical, also called prophetic by some, is that which is concerned with a paraphrase or a fuller explanation and commentary on either the whole or part of Holy Scripture, a book or some passage of it, and investigates its truth and true meaning.

Thesis XXI

Didactic theology, strictly so called, which is also called systematic and thetic or positive, is that which sets forth in order and clearly explains the theological commonplaces, exactly defines and divides the doctrines of faith, and derives and proves them from the fundamental seat that they have in Holy Scripture.

Note: This didactic theology is suited to schools and academies and is much more detailed and fuller than the popular or catechetical [theology] that obtains in the churches among the unlearned people....

Thesis XXII

Polemic theology, polemic and controversial, or controversial and refutative, which others call scholastic, or rather academic, deals with ancient and more recent theological controversies, properly formulates the point of the question, establishes the heavenly truth with arguments drawn from Holy Scripture, defends established [truth] against objections, asserts vindicated [truth] against objections and is thus concerned with building up orthodoxy and tearing down heterodoxy or in building up the truth and destroying falsehood. Briefly, Didactic theology teaches the truth, polemic [theology] defends the truth.

Note I. Didactic and controversial theology do not differ in regard to matter but only as to the way of handling [it].

Note II. In polemic theology this is especially to be avoided, that idle questions be piled up and arguments grow out of arguments, thus creating a theology of strife and contention, in which the truth is lost by too much altercation.