Martin Luthers Large Catechism | Page 8

heart, and which is also the most common idol on earth. He who has
money and possessions feels secure, and is joyful and undismayed as
though he were sitting in the midst of Paradise. On the other hand, he
who has none doubts and is despondent, as though he knew of no God.
For very few are to be found who are of good cheer, and who neither
mourn nor complain if they have not Mammon. This [care and desire
for money] sticks and clings to our nature, even to the grave.
So, too, whoever trusts and boasts that he possesses great skill,
prudence, power, favor friendship, and honor has also a god, but not
this true and only God. This appears again when you notice how
presumptuous, secure, and proud people are because of such
possessions, and how despondent when they no longer exist or are
withdrawn. Therefore I repeat that the chief explanation of this point is
that to have a god is to have something in which the heart entirely
trusts.
Besides, consider what in our blindness, we have hitherto been
practicing and doing under the Papacy. If any one had toothache, he
fasted and honored St. Apollonia [lacerated his flesh by voluntary
fasting to the honor of St. Apollonia]; if he was afraid of fire, he chose
St. Lawrence as his helper in need; if he dreaded pestilence, he made a
vow to St. Sebastian or Rochio, and a countless number of such
abominations, where every one selected his own saint, worshiped him,
and called for help to him in distress. Here belong those also, as, e.g.,
sorcerers and magicians, whose idolatry is most gross, and who make a
covenant with the devil, in order that he may give them plenty of
money or help them in love-affairs, preserve their cattle, restore to them
lost possessions, etc. For all these place their heart and trust elsewhere
than in the true God, look for nothing good to Him nor seek it from
Him.
Thus you can easily understand what and how much this
commandment requires, namely, that man's entire heart and all his
confidence be placed in God alone, and in no one else. For to have God,
you can easily perceive, is not to lay hold of Him with our hands or to
put Him in a bag [as money], or to lock Him in a chest [as silver
vessels]. But to apprehend Him means when the heart lays hold of Him
and clings to Him. But to cling to Him with the heart is nothing else
than to trust in Him entirely. For this reason He wishes to turn us away

from everything else that exists outside of Him, and to draw us to
Himself, namely, because He is the only eternal good. As though He
would say: Whatever you have heretofore sought of the saints, or for
whatever [things] you have trusted in Mammon or anything else,
expect it all of Me, and regard Me as the one who will help you and
pour out upon you richly all good things.
Lo, here you have the meaning of the true honor and worship of God,
which pleases God, and which He commands under penalty of eternal
wrath, namely, that the heart know no other comfort or confidence than
in Him, and do not suffer itself to be torn from Him, but, for Him, risk
and disregard everything upon earth. On the other hand, you can easily
see and judge how the world practices only false worship and idolatry.
For no people has ever been so reprobate as not to institute and observe
some divine worship; every one has set up as his special god whatever
he looked to for blessings, help, and comfort.
Thus, for example, the heathen who put their trust in power and
dominion elevated Jupiter as the supreme god; the others, who were
bent upon riches, happiness, or pleasure, and a life of ease, Hercules,
Mercury, Venus or others; women with child, Diana or Lucina, and so
on; thus every one made that his god to which his heart was inclined, so
that even in the mind of the heathen to have a god means to trust and
believe. But their error is this that their trust is false and wrong for it is
not placed in the only God, besides whom there is truly no God in
heaven or upon earth. Therefore the heathen really make their
self-invented notions and dreams of God an idol, and put their trust in
that which is altogether nothing. Thus it is with all idolatry; for it
consists not merely in erecting an image and worshiping it, but rather in
the heart, which stands gaping at something else, and seeks help and
consolation from creatures