# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 01 26_S64
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

-night, and told her to get up and make us something to eat, she would do everything I ask, willingly and kindly." The company was shameless enough to challenge him to a test by means of a large wager. The bet was made, and the company went straight to his house at midnight. "Where is my wife?" asked the man, as the maid came out to meet him. — "She is already in bed," was the answer. — "Call her," said the man, "and tell her she is to get up at once and make us some supper." The wife gets up without delay, comes out, greets the company politely and kindly, and says they should just be patient a little while; the meal would soon be ready. Nor did it take long before the meal was served, and the wife waited on her guests with such kindness as if they had been invited by her. After the meal, they could no longer conceal their astonishment: "Mrs. N.," said the soberest among them, "you astonish us" — and thereupon he told her how they had made a bet with her husband and had now lost it. — "Tell us," he then continued, "how have you managed to be so kind to people whose disposition and way of life you, as a devout woman, must surely abhor?" — "Dear friends," replied the wife, "my husband and I, when we married, both lived after the mind of the flesh. It has pleased God to rescue me from that unhappy condition. My husband, however, still walks along this path, and I tremble for his future lot. If he were to die as he is now, how sad his fate would have to be! It is surely my duty, then, not to make his present life a hell for him already."

The whole company was moved by these words, and they made a deep impression on the husband. "Are you, dear wife," he said, "truly concerned for my eternal misfortune? Well then, with God's help I will change." And behold, God also gave grace, so that he became a different man. —

"How and by what means shall conversion take place?"

The conversion of souls, writes Luther, is not a fabricated and false thing, nor does it happen for appearance's sake or with the tongue alone (as so many convert in that way), but it means to be converted heartily and with complete earnestness, and to become a different person — even though the flesh and the outward man do not cease to strive and lust against it. And the soul is thus changed, and converted to the Spirit (so that it becomes hostile to itself and to all its own thoughts, and strives and thirsts after God and after that which is God's), by no other means and remedy than through the lovely words of the Gospel, which are words of grace and the sharp arrows of the Mighty One, which wound with love, so that those become joyful and free who beforehand the Law and lust had made unwilling and enslaved, and thereby made into hypocrites and false converts. So that the work of the Gospel and the fruit of the Word is indeed the genuine transformation and conversion of the soul. (Luther's Works, Halle ed., IV, 2224.)

Certainty of Faith.

The father of the late Myconius testified shortly before his death: "Even if only three souls were to be saved through the blood of Jesus, he would know for certain that he was among them." This is reported by Bogatzky in his Meditations on the Passion of Christ. W. Bergmann relates something similar in his Meditations on the Hour of Death — namely, that an old Christian gentleman, a former quartermaster, named Wolf Georg von Schaplitz (died September 4, 1625), made the following bold declaration of faith: "If the Lord Jesus Christ had suffered for only a single person, I believe, and am certain in my heart, that I am that very person. On this I live, on this I die, on this I shall be saved." — Whoever has experienced nothing of true faith will consider such words either godless or a sign of fanaticism. Whoever knows something of what "believing" means will admire them. God help us to believe that we too belong among the great host of God's children of grace.

How highly Dr. Luther esteemed good works.

See how finely (the Anabaptists) teach concerning good works; they say they give away their good works for a penny. With this they want to be our apes and to imitate our teaching, because they have heard that we teach that good works do not make one righteous, nor do they blot out sin, nor do they reconcile God either. To this the devil here adds his own touch, and despises good works to such a degree that he wants to sell them all for a penny. There I praise God my Lord, that the devil, in his own cleverness, must so shamefully soil and fool himself.

We teach, then, that to reconcile God, to make righteous, to blot out sin, is so high, great, and glorious a work that Christ, God's Son, alone must do it, and that it is properly a pure, sole, special work of the one true God and his grace, to which our works are nothing and can accomplish nothing. But that good works should therefore be nothing, or be worth a penny — who has ever taught or heard such a thing, except out of the lying mouth of the devil? I would not give one of my sermons, one of my lessons, one of my writings, one of my Our Fathers — indeed, however small the works I have ever done or still do — for all the goods of the whole world; indeed, I hold it dearer than the life of my own body, which yet is, and should be, dearer to everyone than the whole world. For if it is a good work, then God has done it through me and in me. Whatever God has done is God's work — what is the whole world against God and his work? Now, although I do not become righteous through such a work (for that must first happen through Christ's blood and grace, apart from works), nevertheless it happens to the praise and honor of God, and to the use and benefit of the neighbor — a thing which no one can pay for, or compare, with the goods of the world. And this fine crowd values it at a penny. Ah, how finely the devil has hidden himself here! Yet who could fail to catch him at it! (L. W. XIV, 281–282.)

In what sense does Scripture say of God that he has hardened certain people? John 12:37–41.

On this Luther says: God employs no work; it is also no work or deed, but rather an omission of God's working. For we do evil for this reason, that he ceases to work in us, and "lets nature, in its wickedness, do what it does." Otherwise, where he himself works, nothing follows but pure good. And this omission on God's part Scripture calls hardening. For evil cannot happen, because it is nothing, but comes about only when nothing good happens, or is hindered. See Luther's Works, Halle ed., vol. XV, Appendix, p. 231.

Dr. M. Luther's Church Postil.

We have the pleasure of hereby informing our readers that Mr. Ludwig has resolved, in order to make the acquisition of the aforementioned work easier, to have it appear in a single large volume of about 1,300 pages, entirely in the format of the House Postil, at the price of $5.00, and to begin printing without delay as soon as 1,000 genuine subscribers have been found. We cannot help but give special consideration here to the ministers of the Lutheran Church of this country, as to what incalculably blessed consequences it would have for the distant future if they could bring it about that this priceless book of sermons should again become at home in Lutheran families, and be passed down to children and grandchildren as an inheritance from the fathers. Let us, dear brethren in the ministry, consider what we might perhaps be now, were the testimonies of our fathers not still in our hands in printed writings! Even the few faithful Lutherans still remaining would then perhaps long since have been swallowed up by the new pseudo-Lutherans, or by the sects.

Mr. Ludwig writes to us: Subscribers are asked to apply to the agents listed just below, or, for 10 or more copies, to the publisher, if they live in a place to which the books can be sent easily and safely. The publisher asks everyone, however, to bear in mind that payment must come in promptly — or preferably in advance.

Subscriptions are accepted at:
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