# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1855_S57
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lutheran-Theological Pastor's Library. 57

of the Holy Spirit, to obtain trained senses for the discernment of good and evil, of the true and the false, to be made rich more or less in all doctrine and in all knowledge — which they do not need to look to men for, but which fall to them out of the free spirit of the proclamation of evangelical preachers, because they know the voice of their Savior, which lifts out of the distress of sin into grace, out of want into the inheritance, out of hell into heaven, and which — where they are still uncertain and erring — as soon as a right teacher convinces them out of God's Word, they come to recognize truly, bit by bit, and do not depart from it, because the Spirit gives them witness that it is the truth. Now when Wucher, p. 120ff., presents the negation of Höfling and of Julius Müller in its full questionableness and danger, his words are spoken from our very soul; they do not touch, thank God, our own doctrine, that is, the evangelical-Lutheran doctrine; how could it be otherwise!

Would that the dear man might build with us upon one foundation of doctrine! Would that it might please the most wise and gracious God to bring this controversy soon to a good end, to heal the breaches that have arisen thereby in His Church, to bind up the wounds that have been struck upon the spiritual body of Jesus Christ! May He bring the seduced onto the right way and the erring to the knowledge of the pure doctrine of His holy Gospel; may He steer and ward off all those who take pleasure in divisions and who are opposed to His kingdom; may He bless the labors of all His servants who are directed to that end. May He overcome all hindrances of salvation among His believers and turn everything harmful into furtherance. May He preserve us in His truth and sanctify us in the same, that we may thank Him worthily. Amen.

Lutheran-Theological Pastor's Library.

Since with this number we begin to make good on our promise, given in the present periodical, to provide, among other things, literary-historical notices toward the founding of a Lutheran-theological pastor's library, we hope thereby to meet a real need — not, indeed, for the learned (to whom we ourselves do not belong), but rather for many of our dear brother pastors who had less opportunity to acquire the necessary knowledge of books. To be sure, there exists a considerable number of voluminous and compendious works whose purpose is to make one acquainted with theological literature; but these works either contain only a list of book titles without a specified account of their contents, or at least without a critical judgment on the worth of each book indicated; or the principles applied in the criticism are not the right ones; or even where such literary histories, as several of our older theologians produced, satisfy all the requirements that ought to be made of such works, they are nevertheless