The Writings Of Ulrich Stadler
Volume 2

 

Ulrich Stadler was a leading minister (Servant of the Word) in the Hutterian Brethren church.  After suffering much tribulation, he died in 1540 at the Butschowitz church community, which was located about 100 miles north of Vienna, Austria.

 

          Table Of Contents

 

Volume 1

    Introduction to Ulrich Stadler

    The Living Word and Its Work

    How God's Scripture Should be Understood

    The Covenant of our Lord Jesus Christ with His Bride

    What Baptism Is

    Who and What the Body of Christ is

    The Fellowship of Christ in His Sufferings and Blood

    Order in the House of God

    What Obedience is

    What Disobedience is

    Administering Punishment in the House of God

    Justice and Judgement in the House of God

    Confession of Sins in the House of God

    Concerning Judgement in Temporal Things

    Avoidance of False and Excluded Brothers

    The Perverse Shall Not Be Heard

 

Volume 2

    Marriage

    What Marriage Is

    Ungodly Marriages

    How Matrimony is Observed to the Honor of God

    What Marriage Signifies and Shows Us

    What will Separate such a Marriage

    What Passion is and Where it comes from

 

Volume 3

    Speaking Foolishly in the House of God

    The Children of God Speak Truth with Neighbors

    No One should Depend on His Own Understanding

    A Man of God has a Constant Struggle with the Devil

    A Teaching of Stadler about Sin

    Loosing and Binding in the House of God

    The Community of Saints

    How the Holy live in Community

 

Volume 4

    Original Sin

    Another Letter Concerning Original Sin

    Entrance into Christianity

    Letter to the Church at Grosnikau

    Second Letter to the Church at Grosnikau

    Letter to Authorities in Poland

 

 

Marriage

By Ulrich Stadler

 

Whosoever does not have the gift of chastity, shall, by the will of God, be married. 

Chastity, as Christ and the Holy Spirit bears witness, is a gift from God.  Whosoever has not received this grace or gift from God, and feels that he may not preserve his chastity and resolves to marry, may do so in the Lord.  This is wisdom when one realizes that he may no longer contain himself, except by God's grace. 

If he has not received this gift from God, and knows that God has ordained that man should marry, he is to follow the will of God else he will be beaten with many stripes.  If he continues in his passion, and ignores the will of God, he will be rejected by God.

Such joining in marriage shall be sealed in the Lord, to God's glory, as explained below.

 

What Marriage IsAnd How One Should

Marry In The House of God

 

Marriage is the joining together of one man and of one woman so that the one helps the other to multiply seed to the honor of God. 

Marriage should be brought about or performed in accordance with the order of God, in the obedience of Jesus Christ, our Lord. 

In the same way as Abraham took for his son, Isaac, a wife of his own house, as the Lord had ordained, so also all the children of Abraham, or Christians, should marry within the house of God and not go to heathen or other peoples, for by doing so they could come to forget the almighty God and be led astray. 

Nor should any be placed together in marriage, contrary to the order of God, without the knowledge of the servants who hold office in God's service.  Marriage must be appraised with Godly counsel and in divine fear.  For the Holy Spirit points out and says, 'Do nothing without counsel and you shall not regret the deed when it is done.'  (Sirach 32:24)

Marriage, also, should be entered upon with a pure conscience and a well-prepared heart, without knowing what God will send. 

Now what is thus joined and united in the name of the Lord, is a marriage that no man can put asunder - a plant which the Lord has planted, which endures forever. 

Now, whosoever breaks or rends asunder such a marriage is an adulterer and has no part in the kingdom of God.

But whosoever comes together any other way is not joined or united by God and is therefore no marriage, as follows.

 

Ungodly Marriages

 

Where there is a Christian church, there is also Christian order.  Whosoever resists the order of God and takes a wife (as the heathens do that know not God), acting without regard to God's will, and only for selfish pleasure, for beautify or form, seeking only worldly honor and riches or out of shameful wantonness, like a horse or mule, then the devil has power over such a marriage, for it is not of God. (Tobit 6:18)

All who come together in such a way will be punished and destroyed by God unless they separate and reject the unrighteous union. 

For whatsoever God has not joined together and planted, is worthless, and shall be put out of the House of God and destroyed.

 

How Matrimony is Observed to the Honor of God

 

The husband should be the head of the wife, leading and going before her in all good works.  He should love his wife as his own flesh and not be bitter toward her nor distrust­ful of her, but he should honor her, as the weaker vessel, with all gladness, as is his duty, even as Christ does His Bride.

Thus, also, wives should be subject to their hus­bands, as to the Lord, and the wife should respect him and not rule over him, for he is her head and the image and glory of God.  For his sake, also, was she created, and not he for her sake, but she is his honor. 

Yet, in the Lord, neither is man without woman nor woman without man.  Thus woman comes from man and again man from woman, but both come from God. 

All women should be sensible, reasonable, clear and pure, domestic and obedient to their own husbands, not arrogant nor wild, but of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is greatly prized by God, like the holy women in times gone by, such as Judith, Susanna, Sarah and other holy women.

The prayer of such married people is pleasing in the sight of God and without blemish.  And it pleases God when husband and wife live in harmony in the Lord.  That is divine marriage.

 

What Marriage Signifies and Shows Us

 

Marriage does indicate and signify the love and kindness of God toward the human race.  Therefore did God plant and bring up a wife for his beloved Son with great toil and labor.  She, like a beautiful growth in the field, was surrounded by filth and desolation, but He drew her out and cleansed her with water and anointed her with oil. 

'And I passed thee by and beheld thee, and lo, it was time to woo thee.  Then I spread my skirt over thee and covered thy shame.  And I swore unto thee and gave myself to thee in a covenant', says the Lord God, 'that thou should be mine.  And I bathed thee with water and washed away thy blood from thee, and anointed thee with balsam, and clothed thee with embroidered garments and with all manner of beautiful jewels.'  He feeds her with honey and fine flour and oil and makes her Queen.

To this wedding all the races of the earth are invited, but they are few that come to this kingdom of the peace of the Son of God. 

They, however, who prepare themselves and cast off their filthy and soiled clothing and put on, as is briefly shown later, beautiful, spiritual wedding garments, shall have joy, eternal joy, with the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, for ever and ever.

For the love of this Bridegroom and of this Bride is so great that not even with much water can it be quenched or drowned.

This Bride is the people of God, the royal priesthood, that God has chosen for Himself from all the nations of the earth, and purified by the washing of water in the Word. 

The Bridegroom, however, is Christ, the true Son of God, who is the Head of his church.  He goes before her, he feeds her, and is the Savior of his Bride.  Therefore she may well rejoice with all her heart.  She is obedient and subject to him.  She forsakes home, fields and pastures, father and mother, and cleaves to her dear husband.  And he loves her with all his heart.  Thus the marriage, which God has joined together, should and must be like Christ and his Church.

If a man should prove faithless to Christ, and breaks His covenant, he is an adulterer, and if anyone helps to break his marriage, this man too is an adulterer, as explained below.

 

What will Separate such a Marriage

What Divorce is

 

No one may put asunder that God has joined together and ordained. 

As shown above, husband and wife are one flesh but if one should become faithless to his helpmate and keeps company with another, that one shall be cut off from his helpmate, for fornication separates a marriage, so that they are no longer one flesh but two, and are separated and dissolved. 

He who has broken his marriage vows is bound by the Word of God and is unclean.  The other is free and single, has no part with the adulterer. 

This is carnal adultery.  The adultery spoken of by the Holy Spirit through Moses is more important:  'If the wife of your bosom entices you secretly, and tries to draw you away to other gods, you shall not pity her, nor spare her, but you shall surely kill her.  Your hand shall be the first one to strike her, afterward the hand of all the people.'  (Deut 13:6-7)  This means that if one partner would lead the other astray, that one is to be shunned.

If one marriage partner would lead the other from the truth, the one is free to leave without sin, free to withdraw from such unclean flesh.  For a brother or sister is obligated to obey God and follow Him, rather than his own carnal desire and is not bound in such circumstances.  For God has called His own in peace, which they are to pursue and to abandon the heresy or chaff, the enemy of God. 

This type of adultery separates one from God.  When one has broken his covenant with God, he is divorced from God and no longer belongs to God.  Therefore, whosoever breaks his covenant with his partner is cut off from God and the marriage is terminated, for one has broken the covenant.

'I will establish my covenant with you and you shall know that I am the Lord!  That you should remember and feel ashamed and in your confusion be reduced to silence, when I forgive you for everything you have done.' declares the Lord.  (Ezek 16:62)

 

 

What Passion is and Where it comes from

 

Passion is of two kinds.  One is awakened by God through the love aroused by the Holy Spirit, the other is inflamed by Satan, and comes from sin. 

Passion is an inordinate desire for a thing, which, day and night, centers a man's whole attention, effort and thought on obtaining whatever it may be, so that he forgets everything else, regardless of what may happen to him because of it.

The passion of divine love is shown to us by God through Moses when he said that the light or fire on the altar shall burn at all times without ceasing, and shall never be extinguished.  This fire burned in the prophet Jeremiah, who desired nothing but to preach the Word of the Lord, which was a burning fire within him, and he could not keep silent because of what he had seen.  It burnt too in the words of Elijah, and in the hearts of the two men who walked with Jesus, and to whom He opened the Scriptures.

So God's Word is in men's hearts like a fire or a pick that breaks through the rock. 

In contrast, a passionate or fervent heart inflamed by Satan has no peace or rest until it has kindled a fire. 

David and Solomon were overpowered by such inordinate love, that they massacred their souls.  Such desires grow through intemperance, such as striving after and looking at beautiful wo­men, and many, as a result, have gone astray.

Therefore no man should turn his eyes towards them, for whosoever has this passion, intemperance or fervor, can not serve God properly.  For this reason, Paul counsels that it is better to marry than to burn.