# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S12
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 12 —

...stakes, on which, as on holy altars, whole companies of believers offered
up their lives to the LORD as a sacrifice of thanks for his pure Word. — But
alas! what happened? — This springtime of the spirit, too, brought forth by
the pure Gospel, lasted only a short while. Even in his own lifetime Luther
had to watch with dismay how quickly people forgot the unspeakable misery
from which the Gospel had freed them, and how soon that first, so sweet joy
gave way to indifference, to satiety, indeed to disgust at that heavenly
manna. As is well known, already in the year 1524 Luther had warned his
beloved Germans prophetically concerning the great treasure of the Gospel,
pointing to other lands and peoples who had lost it: "And you Germans must
not think that you will have it forever, for ingratitude and contempt will
not let it remain." (Vol. X, 540.) And what Luther had already foreseen in
1524 came to pass. From that time on, ever more buds of hope on the tree of
the church of the Reformation began to wither before they could ripen into
fruit, until Luther at last, in the year 1541, had to make the following
confession to the bitterest enemies of the Gospel: "I must confess, alas, that
although we have the pure doctrine of the divine Word and a fine, pure, holy
church, such as existed in the time of the apostles, in every respect needful
and useful to salvation, yet we are no holier nor better than Jerusalem, the
holy city that was God's own, in which there were nevertheless so many
wicked people among them; yet at all times God's Word was kept pure
through the prophets. So also among us there is flesh and blood, indeed the
devil among Job's children (Job 1:6). The peasant is unruly, the burgher
greedy, the noble grasping: we cry out and rebuke boldly through God's
Word, and resist as much as we can; God be praised, not without fruit — for
whatever the peasant, the burgher, the noble, the lords, etc. allow themselves
to be taught and do listen to, that is, God be praised, exceedingly good, and
accomplishes more than one would ask, some indeed more than they are
able; if they are few, that matters not.... In sum, there is no need for
dispute on account of [our manner of] life, for we confess freely and gladly
that we are not as holy as we ought to be." (Vol. XVII, 1699f.) So far
Luther. And precisely where the light had then shone most brightly — in
Wittenberg, among other places — things soon looked saddest of all.
Already in 1537 Luther said to his Wittenbergers, quite plainly, in a sermon:
"I preach to all of you here in Wittenberg: but how many are there among
you who improve themselves through my preaching and receive that blessed
light in faith, so as to be enlightened by it? Truly, the smaller part believes
my preaching." (Vol. VII, 1493.) While people hastened to Wittenberg from
every region of the world to refresh themselves here at the source from which
streams poured out over all of Christendom, Luther in 1539 had to write in
complaint to the mayor of Wittenberg that, while he was preaching in the
church, the carpenters in the churchyard were hewing and hammering so
that one