# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1856_S47
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

47

Lutheran-Theological Pastors' Library.

(Continued.)

2. In the second row of the shelf for the dogmatic disciplines stand, according to the order we have chosen, the works dealing with Christian apologetics. By apologetics, however, we understand — we note this to forestall misunderstandings — not so much the scholarly presentation of the principles by which one is to proceed in the defense of Christianity and its divine documents, as rather this defense itself, that is, the Christian apologies.

However much individual excellence our own age has just now produced for apologetics, and although whoever now wishes to be sufficiently equipped apologetically cannot do without much of what the present has brought to light for this purpose, we nevertheless do not hesitate to name, as the one indispensable above all others for a Lutheran pastor's library, an older work; namely the following: "The Good Cause of the Divine Revelation Contained in the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments, Proven and Rescued against Its Enemies, by Dr. Theodor Christoph Lilienthal. Königsberg, 1750–1782." This work has appeared twice: once complete in octavo format in 16 parts, and a second time in quarto, of which latter edition, however, only the first volume — containing the first 4 parts of the octavo edition — has appeared. The work has also been translated into Dutch and has appeared at Amsterdam, in octavo, from the year 1765 onward. The author was professor, consistorial councillor, and pastor at Königsberg, as well as city librarian there, son of the well-known Michael Lilienthal, born at Königsberg in 1717 and died on March 17, 1782 — a man of as great a learning in all fields of human knowledge as he was of unfeigned piety. He was a student and trusted friend of Johann Georg Walch. His zeal for divine truth, paired with great gentleness, earned him the byname of a "Defensor orthodoxias moderatissimus," which was bestowed on him by those of his contemporaries who were favorably disposed toward him. (See Acta hist. — ecclesiastica nostri temporis. Weimar, 1784. Part 74, page 174.) Lilienthal worked on his apologetic work for more than 30 years. The content of the whole work is as follows: The first and second parts treat 1. of the necessity and reality of divine revelation; 2. of its marks; 3. of the truths occurring in Holy Scripture in general; 4. of the mysteries occurring therein; 5. of the prophecies of Holy Scripture in general, and 6. of the prophecies fulfilled in Christ and His kingdom in particular. The third, fourth, and fifth parts treat 1. of the contradictions imputed to

Holy Scripture; 2. of the agreement of Holy Scripture