# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 11 15_S24
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

preached the Law, and that his servants too must preach it. Indeed, the Law must be preached just as much as the Gospel, and indeed in its full severity, so that secure sinners may feel its power and come to the knowledge of their sins; for that is the purpose for which the Law must be preached. It prepares the way for the Gospel; the Gospel can comfort and raise up no one whom the Law has not first brought to despair of all his own powers, doing, and life, and to be heartily terrified before God's wrath and judgment; the Gospel can make no one alive whom the Law has not first killed with its curse. But when Christ or his servants preach this Law, they are not preaching Christ's Law, but Moses' Law; they are not then in their own proper office, but in a foreign one, namely Moses' office; for Christ's office is not to wound, terrify, crush, and kill, but to heal, bind up, comfort, and save. Isaiah 61:1–2.

Who could place trust in a Christ, or love a Christ, who indeed offered grace and salvation with the one hand, but with the other held before us the Law and its curses, as another Moses? How hard it is to move a troubled heart to put Moses out of sight, and to look only upon the Lamb of God, who bears the sin of the world, and who is without wrath and vengeance! How much worse, then, when the Savior himself is presented to the already timid and fearful conscience as a terrifying judge? — And this is exactly what our opponents do, when they confuse Moses' Law with Christ's Law. How aptly Luther describes them in his sermon "On the Difference between Law and Gospel," on Galatians 3:23–24, where, after a thorough exposition of this distinction, he says: "The papists and fanatics do not know it at all; and I see the same even in myself and others who know how to speak of it as well as anyone, how difficult this distinction is. The art is common enough; it is quickly said that the Law is a different word and teaching than the Gospel; but to distinguish them in practice, and to put the art into effect, is toil and labor. St. Jerome too wrote much about it, but like a blind man about color. They call it the Law, that one must be circumcised, sacrifice, not eat this or that, and so forth. After that they make of the Gospel a new law, which teaches how one should pray and fast, how you should become a monk or a nun, or go to church, and so on. And this they call distinguishing. Indeed, it should rather be called throwing them together. For they themselves do not know what they are washing."

From this mixing of the Law with the Gospel also comes this error of our opponents, that they wish to convert people by means of laws and works. A clear proof of this is found on page 69 of their Church Order:

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"Go from one house to another and teach all who are in it, young and old, to become Christians inwardly and outwardly. . . . To this end" (in order to make Christians) "precept must be given upon precept, here a little, there a little." If the Methodists understood and believed that the article of justification alone makes Christians, and nothing else; that there are no Christians anywhere, but only sheer hellish darkness, wherever this article is not taught and believed rightly and purely, then they would not hold such a perverse doctrine, nor take it into their heads to want to make people godly by means of laws and precepts. We, for our part, know of no other way, from Christ and his apostles, of converting people, than to make the self-righteous into sinners through the Law, and to hold before sinners the righteousness which they have in Christ, and which they must lay hold of by faith. But to give "precept upon precept" — that was the manner in which the Pharisees wanted to make people pious, and what fruit came of that is well known enough, namely hypocrisy and spiritual arrogance.

It further cannot be reconciled with the pure doctrine of justification, that the Methodists count man's own doing and working among the means of grace. The means of grace are, as every child knows, only the Word and the Sacrament; and indeed, if one divides the Word into Law and Gospel, then it is not the Law but only the Gospel that is the true means of grace. But the Methodists, according to pages 60 and 99 of their Church Order, also count public worship, prayer, and fasting among the means of grace ordained by God. Indeed, on page 59, prayer stands at the very top among the means of grace, and on page 107 even attendance at the class meetings and fasting on every Friday are placed among the means of grace ordained by God! Ah, how plainly Luther's judgment on such fanatics, mentioned above, is confirmed here: "they make of the Gospel (the sole means of grace) a new law, which teaches how one should pray and fast, go to church, and so forth"! One might well accept it, if prayer and other godly exercises, in a broader sense, were counted among the means of grace, with the distinction, however, that the effects of grace come solely and exclusively from the Word and Sacrament, yet find all the more room in those who diligently and earnestly exercise themselves in the Word and Sacrament (which is, after all, indeed the only means of grace) through prayer, meditation, and trial. But of any such distinction there is nowhere any mention in the book; rather, whenever the means of grace — and indeed the means of grace ordained by God — are spoken of, everything is thrown together indiscriminately, and even pure human ordinances are included, for example on page 60: the regular reading of the whole Bible in order, at a fixed time of day, constantly carrying the Bible about with oneself, and the like. How can a person learn from this what a means of grace actually is? And how can those themselves have a clear conception of it, who throw everything together in such confusion? How confused their conception of justification must be, if they do not even properly know what a means of grace is.

Let it also be noted in passing how little careful our opponents are not to confuse consciences. They count public worship among the means of grace, but seem not to have thought at all of those cases in which a Christian, through no fault of his own and against his will, is completely cut off from public worship. Far be it from me to speak up for those frivolous despisers who invent an obstacle for themselves; but nevertheless one ought to spare tender consciences, or else one sins in practice against the doctrine of justification.

Everything that has been said thus far is connected with this: that the Methodists do not know how to distinguish Law and Gospel, but throw them together, and in this way it is impossible for the doctrine of justification to be pure among them.

(To be concluded.)

To Serve God, Without His Word, in One's Own Devotion, Is Idolatry.

"St. Paul calls idolatry all manner of holiness, worship, and spiritual pretense, however brightly it may gleam from without, however beautiful and glorious it may appear; together with all manner of ardent and fervent devotion of heart in those who want to serve God without Christ the Mediator, without his Word and express command — as, for instance, in the papacy it was held to be one of the most spiritual of works when the monks sat in their cells and composed there about God and his wonderful works, when in their great devotion they were so fervently kindled that they lay on their knees, prayed, and had their contemplation of heavenly things, with such great delight and devotion that they wept for great joy." (One sees just such devotion today among the fanatics — the Methodists, Baptists, and the like.) "Then they banished all thoughts of women, and of all that is transitory, and thought only of God and his great wondrous works. Yet all this, which reason nevertheless held to be an angelic spirituality, is, according to St. Paul's judgment, a work of the flesh. Therefore every religion — whatever name and appearance it may have, however great and holy it may seem — in which one wants to serve God without his Word and command, is nothing other than idolatry; and the holier and more spiritual they appear, the more harmful and poisonous they are; for they lead people away from faith in Christ, and cause them to rely on their own strength, works, and righteousness."

(Luther's Commentary on Galatians 5:20.)

N.B. It has, as we hear, surprised some of our readers that, by including the treatise "Rationalism," etc., we have become untrue to our principle of admitting into "Der Lutheraner" only such essays as are comprehensible even to every unlearned reader. In declaring, therefore, that only special reasons could have moved us to admit that essay, we assure our readers that in the future only submissions "generally comprehensible" shall find a place in "Der Lutheraner."

Paid: 2nd half of Vol. 1, Messrs. Henfling, Heiner; 1st half of Vol. 2, Messrs. Beck, Ch. and J. Horn; Vol. 2, Rev. P. Lochner, Rev. P. Brohm (816.)

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