ty of sounds and words, which enter, with marvelous diversity,
into so many ears and hearts? Much less are we able to analyze the
inner workings of the mind--its thoughts, its meditations, its
memory. Why, then, should we presume, with our reason, to compass and
comprehend the eternal, invisible essence of God?

_Trinity Sunday_

Second Sermon. Text: Romans 11, 33-36.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY.[1]

[Footnote 1: This sermon was first printed in 1535, at Wittenberg.]

1. This festival requires us to instruct the people in the dogma of
the Holy Trinity, and to strengthen both memory and faith concerning
it. This is the reason why we take up the subject once more. Without
proper instruction and a sound foundation in this regard, other
dogmas cannot be rightly and successfully treated. The other
festivals of the year present the Lord God clothed in his works and
miracles. For instance: on Christmas we celebrate his incarnation; on
Easter his resurrection from the dead; on Whitsunday the gift of the
Holy Spirit and the establishment of the Christian Church. Thus all
the other festivals present the Lord in the guise of a worker of one
thing or another. But this Trinity Festival discloses him to us as he
is in himself. Here we see him apart from whatever guise assumed,
from whatever work done, solely in his divine essence. We must go
beyond and above all reason, leaving behind the evidence of created
things, and hear only God's own testimony concerning himself and his
inner essence; otherwise we shall remain unenlightened.

2. Upon this subject the foolishness of God and the wisdom of the
world conflict. God's declaration that he is one God in three
distinct persons, the world looks upon as wholly unreasonable and
foolish; and the followers of mere reason, when they hear it, regard
every one that teaches or believes it as no more than a fool.
Therefore this article has been assailed continually, from the times
of the apostles and the fathers down to the present day, as history
testifies. Especially the Gospel of St. John has been subjected to
attack, which was written for the special purpose of fortifying this
dogma against the attacks of Cerinthus the heretic, who in the
apostolic age already attempted to prove from Moses the existence of
but one God, which he assigned as reason that our Lord Jesus cannot
be true God on account of the impossibility of God and man being
united in one being. Thus he gave us the