tumbling and a rock of offense.'" "And we in the
Papacy, the last and greatest of saints, what have we done? We have
confessed that He [Christ] is God and man; but that He is our Savior,
who died and rose for us, etc., this we have denied and persecuted with
might and main" (those who taught this). "And even now those who claim
to be the best Christians and boast that they are the Holy Church, who
burn the others and wade in innocent blood, regard as the best doctrine
[that which teaches] that we obtain grace and salvation through our own
works. Christ is to be accorded no other honor with regard to our
salvation than that He made the beginning, while we are the heroes who
complete it with our merit."

Luther continues: "This is the way the devil goes to work. He attacks
Christ with three storm-columns. One will not suffer Him to be God; the
other will not suffer Him to be man, the third denies that He has
merited salvation for us. Each of the three endeavors to destroy Christ.
For what does it avail that you confess Him to be God if you do not also
believe that He is man? For then you have not the entire and the true
Christ, but a phantom of the devil. What does it avail you to confess
that He is true man if you do not also believe that He is true God? What
does it avail you to confess that He is God and man if you do not also
believe that whatever He became and whatever He did was done for you?"
"Surely, all three parts must be believed, namely, that He is God, also,
that He is man, and that He became such a man for us, that is, as the
first symbol says: conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered, was crucified, died, and rose again, etc. If one small part is
lacking, then all parts are lacking. For faith shall and must be
complete in every particular. While it may indeed be weak and subject to
afflictions, yet it must be entire and not false. Weakness [of faith]
does not work the harm but false faith--that is eternal death." (St. L.
10, 998; E. 23, 258.)

Concerning the mystery involved in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the
chief topic of the Ecumenical Creeds, Luther remarks in the same tract:
"Now, to be sure, we Christians are not so utterly devoid of all reason
and sense as the Jews consider us, who take us to be nothing but crazy
geese and ducks, unable to perceive or notice what folly it is to
believe that God is man, and that in one Godhead there are three
distinct persons. No, praise Go