# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1856_S233
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Sermon Preparation from Dr. Luther. 233

must be entirely clear how slavery appears in the light of God's Word; a wavering back and forth, an unprincipled appeal to isolated passages of Scripture apart from their context, an anxious tacking between the two extremes, a compassionate shrugging of the shoulders, an opinion built merely on grounds of utility, a narrow-minded repetition of the well-worn saying that the slaves of the South are better clothed and more abundantly fed than the free laborers of the North, or again a vague, philanthropic sympathy for the slaves without sure guidance by God's Word — none of this comports with the preacher of the Gospel, who is to be armed with the word of truth on the right hand and on the left; yet he would not fulfill his calling if he were to make a beginning with a zealotic denunciation of slavery, or to take part at all in the political agitations against slavery. He is a servant of him who has said: my kingdom is not of this world. Let him preach to masters and servants alike the blessed Gospel of our redemption, of repentance and the forgiveness of sin, and, so far as it lies in him, bring both to an awareness of, and into possession of, their freedom from sin, death, and the devil won through Christ. When this Gospel is received by masters or servants, slavery has already lost the terror that clings to it, and the way is opened by which the slaves may at last attain to their bodily freedom. Thereupon let him admonish, in Pauline fashion, both masters and servants, and rebuke both without respect of persons when they forget their duty. In particular let him take up the poor, neglected, downtrodden slaves in compassionate love, as the lambs of Christ, through teaching and instruction. For if they stand on so deep a level of moral degradation and fall at best into an enthusiastic Methodism, whose fault is that but that of those who show them no compassionate love? Going forward courageously and faithfully on this path, he will indeed not win the favor of the slaveholders, but will rather draw their wrath upon himself. Yet let him not fear their defiance nor be dismayed; let him rather sanctify God in his heart.

(Sent in by Pastor Hoyer.)
Sermon Preparation from Dr. Luther.
(Conclusion.)

The demonstration that Luther's manner of preaching is also an excellent model with respect to form may first bring out how his arrangement corresponds so entirely to the content and significance of evangelical proclamation. I do not deny that in this regard we have, through God's grace, already taken a good step forward. That among the Roman-