# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1857_S48
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

48 Lutheran-theological Pastor's Library.

and was of a handsome build. Likewise, he was a fine, eloquent, friendly, gracious, earnest, truthful, courageous, chaste, generous, cheerful man, who could observe moderation in all things; he spoke no idle word; toward the stubborn he was fearsome, toward the timid comforting. Likewise, when he was asked about the right meaning of a passage in Holy Scripture, he was at once ready with the answer. When he was asked for counsel, he gave good counsel on the spot, as though he had long pondered it beforehand, and it turned out so well that one could easily perceive that the Holy Spirit himself was master and counselor there. He was not obstinate, snapped at no one peevishly, gave friendly answers and good reports, was no mocker, but had compassion for simple folly or lack of understanding; he gave gladly, lent gladly, served everyone gladly, both in counsel and deed, in words and works." (Cited in the Unschuldige Nachrichten, year 1728, pp. 527, 528.) — After this rather lengthy introduction, we can now be that much briefer in identifying Luther's polemical writings against the Reformed themselves. There are chiefly four of them which a Lutheran pastor ought not only not to leave unread, but also not to leave unstudied. They are the following: 1. "Writing against the Heavenly Prophets, concerning Images and the Sacrament. First and second part." This work appeared in the years 1524 and 1525, directed specifically against Carlstadt, and at the same time against the fanatics Storch, Stübner, Cellarius, and Münzer. It is of particular importance, being the one with which the fight for the pure doctrine of the sacrament of Holy Communion was first taken up on Luther's side, after Carlstadt, as is well known, had maliciously opened this controversy; as Melanchthon, among others, writes in the preface to the little book de veterum sententiis de coena Domini as follows: "The controversy over the Lord's Supper he (Carlstadt) began only out of hatred toward Luther, not from honest intent. For when his iconoclasm was condemned by Luther, he, inflamed with a monstrous desire for revenge, began to seek a plausible pretext by which he might wholly suppress Luther's good name. A good part of Germany can testify that I invent nothing in this matter. And indeed, should witnesses be needed, his own books will, against their

Luther and Melanchthon make it out that the former was stormy and wrathful, the latter gentle and patient. In daily life, precisely the reverse relation held true. Unmistakable evidence from history for this is in our hands. It is nevertheless the truth that Luther hated false doctrine with rightful earnestness, and that, rather than sacrifice the purity of the Gospel, he would rather anger the whole world and let everything go topsy-turvy, committing the matter cheerfully and without anxiety to his God, in the conviction that it was not his to preserve the church but only to preach the truth, leaving the rest then to God to see to. Melanchthon, by contrast, was only too inclined, out of a misguided concern for the church, to compromise the truth, so that he was even called to account for it by Calvin himself.