# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1855_S75
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

A Sample and Prospectus, etc. 75

...what Pastor Löhe says here about Scripture and the symbols, and the symbols and Scripture, means, at bottom, nothing other than this: the symbolic books, as such, do not exist for him. Perhaps, especially once they have first been corrected — that is, once at bottom they no longer exist — he will once again confess them with his heart; until then, however, only with his mouth, and that under nothing but protests and exceptions. Where, in all this, is the simplicity and sincerity? We can discover no difference in kind, only a difference in degree, between Pastor Löhe's position toward the symbols and that of the rationalists. —

Among the friends of this otherwise so dear man, whose heart does not turn over within him for grief? Who does not feel an icy chill run over him when he hears him speak so coldly, so utterly without heart, about the precious confession of the Church, about Luther, and about the other excellent witnesses of God? Ah, dear sirs, do stop always speaking of the possibility that something truly worthwhile may yet one day be discovered by you, through which the symbolic books would first receive their proper luster — and thereby stop deceiving and vexing the poor, simple children of the Church! Prove, rather, in what respect they err; bring forth at last your improvements and corrections into the light, and we shall then see whether it amounts to anything more than, at best, a splendid binding, and — a Romishly gilded edge. God have mercy!

(Submitted.)
Sample and Prospectus for the Publication

of a
"genuinely evangelical exposition of the Sunday and festival Gospels of the church year, translated and extracted from the Gospel Harmony of the Lutheran theologians M. Chemnitz, Polyk. Leyser, and Joh. Gerhard,

published

by the monthly Pastors' Conference at Fort Wayne, Indiana."

Deeply impressed by the high worth and the never-sufficiently-to-be-heeded importance of the public preaching of the Gospel, by which the Lord plants and spreads, nourishes, governs, and preserves His Church on earth, the monthly Pastors' Conference at Fort Wayne, Indiana, has earnestly made it its concern to come to clarity concerning the most suitable manner of preparing for the composition of sermons. When it had to recognize that, next to the indispensable prayer for the illumination of the Holy Spirit, what is needed for this above all is a thorough study of the text, a deeper penetration into its understanding — in short, a faithful grasping and hearing of what the Spirit speaks to us in the Word — it naturally looked, for this highly important work, also for reliable, capable