# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 02 21_S49
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Lutheran.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall not pass away, now nor ever."

Published by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 2.

St. Louis, Mo., February 21, 1846.

No. 13.

Terms: The Lutheran appears once every two weeks, at a subscription price of one dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who must prepay half of this and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single issue is sold for 5 cents.

(Submitted by Pastor Keyl.)

Centenary Observance of Luther's Death.
(Continued.)

Luther's Last Sermons.

Especially important are the four sermons that Luther preached during his three-week stay in his native town of Eisleben, notwithstanding his weakness — sermons whose preservation we owe to his faithful pupil C. J. Aurifaber, who took them down from Luther's own mouth and soon afterward had them printed. They are to be found in Luther's Works: Walch's edition, vol. XII, p. 1566 ff.; Leipzig edition, vol. XII, p. 402 ff.; Wittenberg edition, vol. XII, p. 584 ff.; Altenburg edition, vol. VIII, p. 512 ff.; Jena edition, vol. VIII, p. 285 ff. Of these sermons Aurifaber aptly remarks that they are abiding witnesses to the doctrine and to Dr. Luther's Christian farewell from this vale of tears, in that he once more, and in them, confessed the Lord Christ before all the world, and at last commended himself into His hands. In this Luther followed the holy apostle Peter, who, sensing that he would soon lay aside his earthly tent, took pains that what he had taught might be kept in remembrance everywhere after his departure (2 Peter 1:15). Accordingly he once more bore decisive testimony concerning the most important chief articles of the Christian doctrine, and warned against all the errors opposed to them, with such a demonstration of the Spirit and of power as none of the later teachers has attained, much less surpassed. Now, in order to arouse in the readers of this paper, after what has been said so far, an even greater desire to read these sermons themselves, and at the same time to encourage those who are able to lend a hand toward making them known through a new printing to undertake this good work, not merely a few excerpts but complete and faithful extracts of these sermons shall now be communicated.

In the first sermon, which Luther preached on the fourth Sunday after Epiphany (January 31) on the Gospel, Matthew 8:23–27, he shows how Christ, by his sleeping in the boat, proved that he was truly a natural man, but how he also, by threatening the wind and the sea so that it suddenly became entirely calm, revealed his eternal deity and his dominion over all creatures. This article — that Christ is true God and man in one person — we should hold fast forever, for in it the faith of Christians differs from the faith and religion of all other people, and it makes all the latter false; for although they boast of worshiping the one God who created heaven and earth, and slander Christians as though they worshiped many gods, they nevertheless do not have the true God and know neither his divine being nor his will, since they will not believe his Word, in which he makes himself known to us — namely, that he is such a God as has an only-begotten Son, who together with him, the Father, is equally eternal and almighty God, and that this same Son of God was to assume human nature, be conceived without sin by the Holy Spirit, and be born of the Virgin Mary, so that, according to the divine promise in Genesis 3:15, he as the woman's seed might crush the head of the serpent — that is, the devil — and thereby redeem us from God's wrath and obtain eternal grace. Thus, says Luther, there is truly no other God than this one, who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, both of whom reveal themselves to the church through the Holy Spirit by means of the Word of God. This, he says, is the oldest faith of all, which the first human beings already had in Paradise on the basis of the first promise, which all the holy fathers and prophets of the whole Old Testament confessed, and which Christ and his apostles preached and commanded the whole Christian church to preach until the Last Day. Christ himself confirmed this faith by public testimony, and not only at that time when he demonstrated his omnipotence over wind and sea, but also afterward; for as often as the devil, at various times, has stirred up his wind and waves — that is, through false spirits and through all manner of raging of the world against Christ — Christ has nevertheless in the end shown his power and gloriously rescued the beleaguered little ship of his church, so that it has been preserved even under the last fury of the pope, and will remain safe still further. Therefore we should at all times take comfort in this Lord against all enemies and firmly believe that they, with all their storms, will accomplish nothing against this little ship.

Just as all heathens and non-Christians know nothing certain about God and his being, so in their idolatry they have split themselves into many parties and have continually fallen from one error into another, as can be seen among the wisest and most famous peoples of antiquity — among the Greeks, who erected an altar to the unknown God (Acts 17), and among the Romans, who built a temple for all their gods. In the same way, says Luther, the papacy has adopted all manner of idolatry, and because among the monks each held his own order to be the best, they were always at odds among themselves, and were united only in their hatred of the true doctrine of the gospel and in their love for everything godless. All of this comes from the devil's deep hatred of Christ and his gospel; for those who serve him suffer no danger on account of their false faith — neither wind nor waves stir there, just as once, when Christ was not yet on the sea; only the little flock where Christ is must be assailed with great violence. It is also a particular malice of the devil that he rages most fiercely against Christians precisely in the places and at the times when they are weakest and most easily frightened, as with the disciples on the sea — especially when Christ himself, for a time, even acts as though he would leave his Christians without counsel or help, as he did then when he slept in the boat; but all this happens only so that he may reveal his help all the more gloriously in his own time, as proof that it is not for lack of his power but because of our unbelief that we sometimes despair — for which reason he also rebuked his disciples — and even if we too feel such unbelief, we should nevertheless, like the disciples, persist in crying out to him in our need, whereby we strengthen our weak faith in him; and this is what he desires and is glad to hear, and so we would learn how his power is unconquerable in our weakness.

Luther preached the second sermon on the Feast of the Purification of Mary (February 2) on the festival Gospel, Luke 2:22–32, and indeed with repeated references to the disputes then pending among the counts. In it he shows how God, through the law concerning women who had given birth, proved himself a wise father of the household,