# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1855_S343
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lutheran-Theological Pastor's Library. 343

— by contrast, the technical language of our best theologians, for example a Baier, serves only to allow no doubt to arise about their true meaning, since the terms they chose either have a generally known, firmly fixed meaning, or are clearly and precisely defined by them. The first edition of our compendium, incidentally, appeared in the year 1686. Only the third edition, of the year 1693, ranks among the most complete that have appeared.

Should we now name here yet another dogmatic compendium, composed in the German language and to be placed in the first class of the books of our library, we would rather here name the little work of Nicolaus Hunnius, since it has again recently been reissued and is therefore easiest to obtain. The old title is: Dr. Nicolai Hunnii, Superintendent at Lübeck, Epitome credendorum, or, The Content of the Whole Christian Doctrine, so much of it as anyone needs to know and believe in his Christianity for the salvation of his soul. Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1625." The new title is: "Thorough Presentation of the Doctrine of Faith of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Published by Heinrich Brandt, Dean and first Pastor at Windsbach in Bavaria. Printed at the T. Hessel'sche Officin at Altdorf. 1844." It is a book of 500 octavo pages. The editor says in the preface that the new edition contains only "quite minor and inessential alterations, concerning only the language," which, since we have no old copy, we gladly take on the word of a man like Brandt. The new edition has, to be sure, not remained free of an ugly blot, for to the words of the old Hunnius, §851: "Every Christian should accordingly know that the Roman pope is the great Antichrist, of whom the prophecies speak" — the editor appends below the unlutheran note: "What follows is the view of all the older dogmaticians of the Lutheran church concerning the Antichrist. In communicating this section, no anticipation whatever of the reader's own view and conviction is intended." This remark was, in the first place, out of place, for who in reading Hunnius asks after the views of Herr Dean Brandt? and, in the second place, not entirely honest, for not only all the older Lutheran dogmaticians but the whole Lutheran church, according to its symbols, teaches as Hunnius does. — In the year 1850 the same work was published anew once more at Nördlingen by Beck, under the following title: "Old Nicolaus Hunnius's Doctrine of Faith of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Made Palatable for the People of Our Time. Second, Improved Edition." We have found time to compare this edition with the preceding one only in part. As far as we have gotten with it, we have noticed no suspicious alteration; we must rather confess that, if the whole is edited as the parts we have compared are, this edition is worthy of every recommendation. The protest against the Lutheran doctrine of the Antichrist is not found here. The printing and paper are here far finer than in the Altdorf edition. It would please us if one of the