# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1856_S200
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Sermon Preparation from Dr. Luther. 200

...Hieronymus Weller — themselves confess that, next to the Lord Christ, Luther was their master. It would indeed be irresponsible for us to choose those disciples and followers of Luther as our teachers and not him at whose feet they themselves gladly and humbly sat. Even the many of our contemporaries to whom the return to the faith and to the theology of the fathers still seems a kind of disgrace will say that, should such a step backward ever be taken, it must in any case extend all the way to Luther himself, in order to be fair. It is impossible, even on a superficial reading of Luther's writings, not to notice that his preaching of the Law goes deeper and higher than that of all his followers down to the present day — deeper in the uncovering of our sinful corruption, higher in the presentation of the righteousness of a Christian. For this reason alone he teaches the Law with such particular clarity: because he distinguishes with extraordinary precision between Law and Gospel, between Law and church ordinances, between worldly and spiritual righteousness, between worldly and churchly government, between the first table and the second — distinctions which, for example, in the exposition of the first Book of Moses come forward already in the very first chapters in the most surprising way, and which often make clear to us, with few words, what we had previously held to be quite unintelligible. The individual sins that he rebukes never appear in his discourse as isolated, separate deeds, but always also in their full connection with the general and root sins — unbelief and pride — and at the same time as works of the devil and of the kingdom of darkness, whose shameful instruments impenitent sinners are. In this way Luther makes it exceedingly hard for his hearer to fend off his preaching of the Law and, by a quick application of it to his neighbor, to withdraw himself from it; for even if someone had not committed the outward and particular sin in question, he is nevertheless compelled, by Luther's preaching, to acknowledge himself a partaker in the evil lust that lies at its root. That art, which flourishes especially in American and English Christendom — namely, straining out gnats and swallowing camels; binding all manner of self-chosen works upon consciences, while not reckoning the perversion of doctrine a sin at all; being a Christian on Sunday and, on the other hand, scraping and clawing on weekdays; living outwardly pious while, on the other hand, being devoted from the heart to the service of Mammon; prattling with the lips about the misery of sin while, on the other hand, holding oneself highly exalted above other poor sinners; presenting oneself toward strangers in distress like a merciful Samaritan while, on the other hand, treating one's own subordinates harshly and highhandedly; practicing idolatry with the so-called Christian civilization of our day while, on the other hand, despising true culture, which measures works and words not by their apparent usefulness but by God's Word and truth — this whole loose conduct loses its halo before Dr. Luther's preaching; from the so-called philanthropy of our day its pious mask is stripped away by it, and