By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
On Luther's account (LW, 35: 235-251), the written law includes three kinds of laws. One of these comprises laws about the external worship of God. But like the other kind comprising laws about temporal things, which are intended more for prevention than for instruction, these laws concerning external worship are not "natural," as are the third kind comprising the laws about faith and love, to whose mastery they and all temporal laws are subject (240).
It would seem to follow, then, that the same reasoning should apply to what Luther has to say about Christ's establishing the new testament, i.e., the mass, as the sole order for the external worship of God (80 f.). In other words, Christ's orders with respect to the mass, like Moses' instructions concerning external worship, are not "natural" and are therefore subject to the mastery of the laws of faith and love that alone are.
2 June 2001
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