Matt Carver, Lutheran hymn translator-extraordinaire, posted on his blog site a fascinating translation of a hymn offering a paraphrase of the entire Augsburg Confession.
Here is my translation of Gott Vater, Sohn, und Geist (J. [Jakob] Fabricius, †1654) a paraphrase of the Augsburg Confession which Rev. B. Mayes found in said author’s Predigten über die Augspurgische Confession (Nur.: W. Endter, 1652) and kindly brought to my attention. The poetic quality is a bit more detectable in the German, though in that version as in this, the odd lines are not rhymed. Especially if the artful Verzage nicht, du Häuflein klein [O Little Flock, Fear Not the Foe] is the work of the same author, you will see that it is not a lack of poetic feeling, but a commitment to deliver the confessional language accurately and succinctly, that has directed the tenor of this paraphrase. The lyric may be sung, as Rev. Mayes points out, to Nun danket alle Gott. Please advise of corrections to the sense, or improvements on the theological implications of my English translation where it deviates unhappily from the meaning of the German (or from the Augsburg Confession itself).
THREE PERSONS, yet one God,
Are Father, Son, and Spirit,
Who dwell in Light divine,
And as one Godhead share it,
Co-mighty, co-eterne,
Co-glorious, fully wise;
All teachings here opposed
Are heresies and lies.
2. By nature, we are born
Poor slaves to our transgression,
Since Adam’s grievous fall,
And we are death’s possession,
Till in baptismal floods
God gives us life again:
What lies Pelagius taught
On this we must disdain.
3. God, of true God begot,
And ever God remaining,
True Man of man was born,
Yet never thereby staining
His mother’s virgin state,
And by His death doth save
Us wretches from our sins,
From torment, and the grave.
4. No human since the fall,
Thus dead in sin unsightly,
Can trust his worthless works.
By faith he must cling tightly
To what Christ Jesus did,
Who reconciled our race
To God, and by His death
Earned us both life and grace.
5. God ever by His Word
To living faith doth win us,
And by His Sacraments
Sustains that faith within us.
By these to work in us
God’s Spirit is resigned;
The Anabaptists make
But idols of their mind.
6. As trees adorned with fruit,
And vines their clusters giving,
So are good works produced
By faith divine and living,
Such works are dear to God.
So see His pleasures through,
Yet be it all by grace,
And not by works we do.
7. One church there is alone,
yet many congregations,
One body, many limbs,
Throughout all generations,
As long as sun doth shine.
Though customs may abound,
Where the one truth is taught,
The church is ever found.
8. Not every soul is saved
Which in the church is sitting,
For often are her doors
Deceitful wolves admitting.
Nor are her Sacraments
Negated, in despite
Of what the priest believes,
Who fills his task aright.
9. The washing with the Word
Is needed to deliver
Salvation to the soul,
And join to God forever
By covenantal bond
All persons, young and old,
Both infant and adult,
In heaven’s holy fold.
10. Christ’s very Body_and Blood
Are in the Supper taken,
Which on the cross He gave
And shed, by God forsaken,
His Body with the bread,
And His Blood with the wine:
All doctrines otherwise
Deny the Word divine.
11. Confession of our sins
Is also kept among us,
Yet not that doubts and griefs
May burden, hound, or throng us.
But rather to release
Those sins that we feel most
For we can scarcely know
Nor number all their host.
12. If one who is baptized,
And, sin anew committing,
Yet afterwards repents,
His former sins regretting
With penitence and faith—
Then let him not despair
Of God’s free gift of grace,
But fruits of sorrow share.
13. The Sacraments are not
Mere tokens of profession,
But are the pledge whereby
God makes us His possession:
So let those who partake
This promise rightly own.
Salvation comes by faith,
And not by use alone.
14. None ever shall presume
To fill the pastor’s station
Unless he first be called
By orderly vocation,
He who would serve the church
Must rightly be ordained,
By Him who hath the right,
From Whom all rights are gained.
15. We justly do retain
Those feasts and observations
By which the ancient church
Enriches our traditions,
Those only we reject
Which hinder true belief,
Or load the conscience down
With human laws and grief.
16. All due authority
Should be respected ever;
From God it hath the pow’r,
Just verdicts to deliver,
And, waging righteous war,
To keep the common peace;
It is our earthly rule,
Until the earth shall cease.
17. When Jesus shall return
And this world meets destruction,
The dead shall all be raised
In one great resurrection:
One part to heav’nly joy,
And one to agony
No temp’ral reign of Christ
Shall earthly kingdoms see.
18. Although we grant mankind
Use of his free volition
For judgment in the things
Of reason and cognition,
Despite his fall in sin:
Yet that which serves the soul,
To save it, is not found
In nature as a whole.
19. All things in heav’n and earth
And everything created,
And which conceived can be,
In God originated:
The devil and man’s will
Are yet the cause of sin
(which is the lack of good)
And so it long hath been.
20. Although no merit can
To works be reckoned ever,
Yet neither is it good
That man pursue them never,
Yet not those works devised
By what man’s feeling saith,
But those from God’s own Word,—
These are the fruits of faith.
21. We honor all the saints,
Their deeds, and their confession,
Esteeming them as good,
Yet not for intercession:
No saints can we invoke
To help us in our need
For only God our Lord
True help and aid can speed.
22. Since Christ did so ordain,
And Paul this word defended,
That in the Sacrament
Both Kinds should be extended,—
Nor did the priests withhold
The Blood from laity,
In early Christendom—
So let it ever be.
23. God willed that men should be
From lust by marriage turning,
For in their weak’ning state,
They often heeds its burning.
So pastors, too, should use
This ordinance divine,
Since they no less belong
To Adam’s fallen line.
24. The Mass we have retained,
Yet one thing is not suffered:
That it be wrongly thought
Christ’s sacrifice re-offered,
In truth, and without blood,
And have that force within,
As that which once for all
Did blot out all our sin.
25. Who goes his sins to own
And to the priest confesses,
Receives God’s kindly Word,—
Forgiveness he possesses:
And Christ’s true body_and blood
Are given in the Meal,
Though he recount alone
Those sins which he doth feel.
26. To chasten our own flesh
By fast and self-demotion,
If for God’s glory done,
With heart of true devotion,—
Then it is done aright;
But if one seek aught else,
Self-merit, grace, or fame,
Then it is vain and false.
27. Monastic lives and vows
Are but a useless prison,
For in them great abuse
Has woefully arisen:
Men join their ranks by force,
Unthinking, and deceived,
To merit righteousness,
And work but villainy
28. The Spirit’s pow’r God gave
The priesthood of the Spirit,
Wherefore they must not seek
Earth’s kingdoms to inherit,
Or, like a prince, to rule
In judgment-seats mundane:
Not for the priest did God
The civil rule ordain.
(29.) Still many things there are
That need examination
Which, due to such abuse,
Cannot have validation:
Yet, let this do for now:
All those desiring more,
For their request shall find
Of answers, ample store.
Translation © Matthew Carver, 2010.
The German original follows in the extended entry.
Read more…
“A fanatic is a person who won’t change his mind, and can’t change the subject.” – Winston Churchill
Thanks, Jonathan!
My colleagues here at Concordia Publishing House, Rev. Dr. Benjamin Mayes and Rev. Charles Schaum, prepared a translation of several pages from the 
The other day, my son asked me, “Dad, why are some people saved, and others are not.” I said, “Aha! You are taking Latin, so tell me what this means. You are asking about the crux theologorum.” He thought for a moment and said, “The cross of theologians?” “Correct you are, sir,” I said, “What you are asking is the old question that has proven the downfall of many theologians through the ages, ‘Why some, not others?’ ” And from there we proceeded into an interesting conversation about a feature of Lutheranism that makes both Calvinists “God predestines some to hell, others to heaven”, on the one hand, and Arminians “I have chosen to follow Jesus!” folks, on the other, frustrated with us. Lutheranism, as does Sacred Scripture, simply does not answer the question why some are saved, and not others. Here’s a great Q/A on this that succinctly states why this is the teaching of the Bible, and, consequently, historic Lutheranism.
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