# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1855_S335
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

How Are Truly Lutheran Congregations Founded, etc. 335

...evangelical, that is, Lutheran, pastor. For here he finds the desired opportunity to paint before the eyes of the godly sorrowful, in a winning and inviting manner, and to lay upon their souls, the all-sufficiency, full validity, power, sweetness, depth, and breadth, and the exceedingly rich comfort of the grace of the Father, and of the blood and death of Christ that atones for the sins of the whole world and takes away their guilt and punishment, as well as, finally, of the glorious and grace-filled Gospel and Sacrament — so that they may lay hold anew of Christ and his merit from these, and from his fullness receive grace upon grace, light upon light, comfort upon comfort, and grow blessedly from faith to faith.

Especially important in this regard for the pastor is that he point the one in need of comfort away from all his own opinion, imagination, and feeling — wherein he fancies himself punished, indeed cast off, by God — to the firm, written, unchangeable, evangelical word of grace and promise in the Old and New Testament, which is directed to him as well; that all his sin was atoned for and expiated by Christ upon the trunk of the cross long before his birth; that he has already, in holy Baptism, been made a partaker of the infinite and most holy merit of Christ, in which God concluded a covenant of grace with him — a covenant which, despite his manifold unfaithfulness, still stands firm on God's side, whose gifts and calling he does not repent of; that he has, indeed, through renewal of repentance and faith, in genuine conversion, once again sought and found the faithful covenant God; that this same God speaks even today to his soul through the mouth of his servant: "Be of good comfort, my son, your sins are forgiven you," and confirms and seals this grace- and comfort-filled absolution through his true body and blood in the Holy Supper, received with the mouth. In sum, the Lutheran pastor thus sets comfortingly before the afflicted the glory of God's great acts of grace, which have taken place for him, the sorrowful one, just as much and just as certainly as for all, and the power and efficacy of the means of grace of the Lord that convey, apply, and seal the same to him as well — and lays these so urgently and lovingly upon his heart, that it is not his fault if the sorrowful one does not become glad and joyful in the Lord. —

Now the more that private pastoral care is carried on in the manner indicated in this article, the more pastoral, edifying, and penetrating public preaching will then also become, and it will not run the risk of becoming an abstract doctrinal treatise. But the more powerfully, in turn, the preached Word enters into hearts and awakens, nourishes, and fosters repentance, faith, and godliness, the more occasion is again afforded for private pastoral care — so that preaching and pastoral care, in such a lovely mutual exchange and cooperation, are unquestionably the most important and foremost means of founding and building up genuinely Lutheran congregations. —