# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1857_S365
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Dr. Martin Luther's Instruction in the Right Study of Theology. 365

a right theologian in doctrine and life, to whom God's name and honor and his own and others' salvation were a serious matter, and who also recognized what great benefits God had shown and proved to poor Germany through Dr. Luther, and always thanked and praised God for it, and yet had the constant apprehension that God would again withdraw His grace from us because of our ingratitude and fleshly worldly security, as indeed we see that this will happen more and more daily in every estate, and that the windows of misfortune, of wrath, and of punishment are being opened on every side.“ (Preface to Weller's Book of Comfort.) Joh. Belz, pastor at Allerstedt, writes out of his own experience: „The highly enlightened man Dr. Wellerus, with his letters of comfort and his counsel of conscience, in the year 1556 truly tore me out of hell and raised me from death and redeemed me. The tristitiæ spiritus (the spirit of sorrow) had already put me to death; I would have sought the dear Doctor Wellerus even to the end of the world.“ (Analecta Wellerian. II, 156.) Sigism. Schererz, superintendent in Lüneburg, writes: „In his lifetime he had, above many hundred other learned men, the singular gift from God that he could powerfully comfort anguished, assailed, and troubled hearts. Hence learned and unlearned alike, in such a sorrowful condition, took refuge with him and sought comfort of him both orally and in writing, and by God's grace also obtained it.“ (Speculum tentationum 1652, p. 190.) In the funeral sermon preached for him it is said: „Today we have once again the corpse of an excellent and highly enlightened man, who has well deserved of this city, church, and school, indeed of land and people, and in other churches also; if God continues thus, we must fear that terrible, dreadful punishments are at hand. The others who are to tread in their footsteps will not follow after.“ In the council chronicle of Freiberg it stands, in the report of his death: „This excellent man led a quiet, holy, godly life, prayed faithfully and heartily, and so bore himself in doctrine and walk that he may rightly be held for the Freiberg prophet.“

No wonder that this dear man's writings have always been held in high esteem. Already Elector August, under whom the Formula of Concord appeared, made arrangements to have Weller's writings collected and published at his own expense, but died in the midst of this godly undertaking, and so it was left undone until M. C. F. Lämmel carried it out in the year 1702 and issued both the Latin and the German writings in two stout folios (the second, the German Tomus, adorns our own private library). Löscher writes in his notice of this work: „They are a true school for those who wish to preach into the heart and to learn rightly to taste the sweet Spirit of the Gospel.“ (Unschuld. Nachr. 1803, p. 200.)

One of Weller's little Latin writings, „Dr. M. Lutheri Regulæ de theologiæ Studio recte instituendo,“ Professor Dr. Delitzsch had