# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 08 17_S103
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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—that he had no hope of any improvement.

He also published the excellent exposition of Psalm 90, whose original edition is to be clearly distinguished from another, much altered one.

In the year 1542 Luther ordained Nicolaus von Amsdorf — whom the Elector had chosen as Lutheran bishop of Naumburg and Zeitz — to his holy office, and carried out his solemn installation, on which occasion he preached a sermon on the pattern for consecrating a true Christian bishop, which he later expanded in a work published shortly afterward under the same title.

In this year the Bohemian Brethren, as their bishop Comenius relates, sent two delegates to Luther for the fourth and last time, to learn what might be hoped for from the Lutherans regarding church discipline. After they had held friendly conversations with him and the other theologians for two weeks, he invited them to a farewell meal, extended his hand to them before the professors present, and said: "You are apostles to the Bohemians; I and my people wish to be apostles to the Germans. You carry on Christ's work among yourselves as opportunity offers itself to you, and we will carry it on as it can be done among us." Luther, however, always carried on the Lord's work in such a way that he provided the church above all with pure doctrine, so that true faith might be planted and cultivated like a good tree — while at the same time he continually showed not only how such a good tree would of itself bear good fruit in a godly life, but also, through his writings and counsel, as circumstances required, contributed with all his power toward establishing a fitting outward church discipline, of which all the Lutheran church orders from the age of the Reformation give sufficient testimony.

At the end of the year 1542 Luther was gladdened by a long letter from certain brothers in Italy, who had come to a knowledge of the truth through his writings. There shines forth from it an inexpressible joy over the treasure of pure doctrine, a living zeal for its preservation, a decided rejection of all errors — including in the sacramentarian controversy — a great steadfastness under all persecutions, a deep reverence for Luther as God's chosen instrument, and an esteem for his writings flowing from their own experience. As a foretaste of this praiseworthy letter, the whole of which space does not permit us to give, let its opening serve, which reads thus: "The streams of living water that flow from your body, most worthy sir, must, through the heavenly rain, increase more and more, so that you may water the thirsty meadows of the Lord ever better and more abundantly, both there daily through preaching and here through writings." What joy these upright people must have felt on receiving

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Luther's excellent reply, in which he also expressly and fatherly warns them against the sacramentarians.

In the year 1543 the Lutheran church was once again surrounded by various dangers, including external ones. But Luther showed a strong trust in his God even in this, and predicted with the greatest certainty that no war would break out during his lifetime.

When Caspar Schwenckfeld, who sought to dress up the old errors of the sacramentarians in a new form and thereby led many people astray in Silesia, sent Luther some of his tracts, Luther answered him with words as blunt as he deserved, writing to him plainly: "He should leave him alone with his little books, which the devil spews out of him." Luther showed this same zeal against false doctrine at the same time in a similar case: for when a printer sent him a Swiss translation of the Bible, he wrote back that he should keep his gift, since it was the work of that printer's preachers, with whom he could have no fellowship, as they would not desist from their error.

Luther also refuted, in several powerful writings, the enemies of Christendom outside it. He republished, in German, an earlier refutation of the Koran, or the religious book of the Turks, and in the preface faithfully warned against such devilish teaching. In the year 1543 he wrote several works against the Jews, in which he cleared many beautiful texts of the Bible — which the Jews had distorted with their lies — from such distortion, and exposed in them the Jews' blasphemies and devilish malice against Christ and his Christians. At that time, too, he no longer believed, as he once had, in a future general conversion of the Jews. Finally, in this year there also appeared the important work on the last words of David (2 Samuel 23:1-7), in which, with great spirit and utmost earnestness, he gives a strong testimony concerning the three persons of the Holy Trinity and the two natures in the one undivided person of the Lord Christ — a testimony able to confirm every Christian in his faith and to guard him against every kind of error.

Although Luther, with increasing age, felt more and more the infirmities of his mortal frame, he nevertheless continued to take a tireless part in the whole work of the Reformation; and just as his eyes, like those of a faithful watchman on the battlements of Zion, were turned in every direction, so his burning zeal for the preservation of pure doctrine drove him to compose several more important writings, especially against the sacramentarians. For Schwenckfeld, despite Luther's blunt answer mentioned above, had with unbelievable brazenness claimed that Luther agreed with him. This occasioned Luther, in the year 1544, to write the work "Brief Confession Concerning the Holy Supper, Against the Fanatics," of which he himself says: "Since I now stand at the edge of the grave, I wish to carry this testimony and this boast before the judgment seat of my dear Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: that I have condemned and shunned, with complete earnestness, the fanatics and enemies of the sacrament — Carlstadt, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Schwenckfeld, and their disciples at Zurich and wherever they may be — and that our preaching still goes forth daily against their blasphemous and lying heresy, which they well know."

In the year 1545 Melanchthon composed, for presentation to the Diet of Worms, the so-called Wittenberg Opinion on the Reformation, which Luther also signed, testifying on this occasion that it was impossible to remain true to God's Word and a good conscience while at the same time retaining the world's favor and the reputation of being accommodating.

Shortly before his end, Luther still had to undergo many bitter experiences, since one offense after another, arising especially in Wittenberg from ungodly living, tormented his soul and at last brought him to the point that in the year 1545 he hastened away from that city and betook himself to his friends at Merseburg and Zeitz. But a very gracious letter from his Elector — to whom the university had turned with urgent petitions — in which the Elector promised to curb all such offenses as forcefully as possible, persuaded him to return to Wittenberg after all. There he completed the sixth and final edition of his German Bible, on whose improvement he had labored without interruption and with great diligence together with his learned friends, and in the course of which he had made many fine notes, known under the name "marginal glosses." He also finished one of his greatest masterworks, the extensive exposition of the first book of Moses, on which he had lectured for ten years, though with many interruptions. Finally he issued the powerful and earnest work "The Papacy Instituted by the Devil," and this was his last book.

At the beginning of the year 1546, by order of the emperor, another religious colloquy was to be held at Regensburg between the contending parties, for which Dr. Major of Wittenberg was sent. When he went to Luther to take his leave of him, he found written in Luther's own hand at the entrance to his study: "Our professors are to be examined concerning the Lord's Supper."

In one of his last sermons Luther exhorted his hearers to pray diligently and to test the spirits, and said that when they should hear he was ill, they should ask for him not a longer life, but only a blessed hour of departure. "I have," he said, "had enough of the world, and the world of me; we may part as easily as a guest checks out of an inn." Also especially remarkable is Luther's last sermon, which he delivered at Wittenberg on the 17th of January on Romans 12:3ff., and in which he speaks of the fruits of faith in Christ—