# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1856_S263
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

263
Lutheran-Theological Pastor's Library.

(Continued.)

Before we close the section of polemical works of our church against the
Roman church and the papacy, we cannot fail to bring forward yet one more work of this kind, of which we believe that it, no less than those already named, should not be missing from the library of any honest evangelical-Lutheran pastor. The title of this work is: Johannis Gerhardi Confessio Catholica, in qua doctrina catholica et evangelica, quam ecclesiae Augustanae Confessioni addictae profitentur, ex Romano-Catholicorum scriptorum suffragiis confirmatur. Francofurti et Lipsiae 1679." — Of the author, Johann Gerhard, it is not necessary to speak, since we already, in reviewing his Loci theologici, took the occasion to communicate to the less well-informed reader the notes that might be needed on his life and course of development. As for the work itself, the title already indicates its purpose and content. It is of an apologetic-polemical character. Whereas Gerhard, in his Loci, gives the proof for the evangelical doctrine and against the Roman Catholic doctrine κατ᾽ ἀλήθειαν, in the present work he gives the proof κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον; that is, whereas in that earlier work he proves the pure doctrine from God's Word and on that basis refutes the opposing doctrine, in this work he instead seeks to compel his opponents to assent by means of what they themselves have already acknowledged and stated. Gerhard shows in it that, before and after the time of the Reformation, Roman Catholic teachers who stand in high esteem within the Roman Catholic Church themselves bear, at innumerable points, unequivocal testimony to the truth confessed by our church, and themselves come forward as witnesses with us against the false doctrines of the Roman church that we reject. The method followed is this: first Gerhard sets forth, in each chapter, his thesis in brief, well-rounded words; then follows, 2, an analysis and closer determination of the thesis, the ekthesis, in order to save it from misunderstanding and misinterpretation; then he sets, 3, against his own thesis the antithesis of the papist, or, if one prefers, of the faithful and strictly Roman Catholic, teachers, for which antithesis proofs from the opponents' own writings follow; after that, 4, a usually shorter proof of the orthodox thesis first set forth is given from Scripture, whereupon finally follows, 5, the main part of the chapter, in which the suffragia of Roman Catholic writers on behalf of the correct doctrine are set forth. To many chapters an appendix is further added, in which the opponents' sham proofs are refuted, their evasions cut off, their complaints that much is imputed to them against the truth are answered, and finally their calumnies against our church and doctrine are exposed for what they are. As for the content and arrangement of the material of the