# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 05 04_S96
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

rising, and to keep it constantly in mind, like a continual sign and mark, before one's eyes and in one's hands. Without doubt, he does not so earnestly hope for and demand this in vain, but rather because he knows our danger and need, together with the devil's constant and raging assault and temptation, and wishes to warn, arm, and preserve us against it, as with good armor against their fiery arrows, and with good medicine against their poisonous, evil vermin and promptings. O what mad, senseless fools we are, that we, who must dwell and lodge among such mighty enemies as the devils are, still wish, on top of that, to despise our weapons and defenses, and are too lazy even to look at them or to think of them.

And what are such weary, presumptuous saints doing—those who will not or do not wish to read and learn the catechism daily—except holding themselves to be far more learned than God himself, together with all his saints, angels, prophets, apostles, and all Christians? For since God himself is not ashamed to teach this daily, as one who knows nothing better to teach, and always teaches this same thing over and over, and undertakes nothing new or different, and since all the saints know nothing better or different to learn, and cannot ever finish learning it—are we not, then, the very finest fellows, who imagine, once we have read and heard it a single time, that we know it all, and need not read or learn it any longer, and can finish learning in a single hour what God himself cannot finish teaching, though he has been teaching it from the beginning of the world to its end, and though all the prophets, together with all the saints, have had to learn it and still are and remain, and must still remain, pupils of it?"

Dr. Luther further recommends daily practice of the catechism, in his Small Catechism, first of all to the heads of households, so that they might hold their children and servants to it, since otherwise they would often neglect it, though they ought, for their own good and for their whole life, to become accustomed to it; it is evident, in particular, from the instructions for morning and evening prayer, that the Ten Commandments, the Christian faith, and the Lord's Prayer are to be practiced daily in connection with them, and, as he says elsewhere, quite possibly also at midday, so that they are to be recited three times a day. Should anyone wish to regard this exercise of the children as a merely outward thing, mere lip-mumbling, Dr. Luther answers him: "That a young baptized child says its Ten Commandments, Creed, and Lord's Prayer in the morning, in the evening, and at table, is rightly prayed and is heard by God; for it prays as a Christian and priest, born in baptism and consecrated through Christ." (Exposition of Psalm 110.)

But Dr. Luther's counsel concerns not only children but adults as well, as, among other things, the following short but excellent passage proves; for after he has spoken of such people as are sick of the Word of God and yet have never tasted it, he continues: "But a Christian thinks daily of his Lord's Prayer, of his Christian faith, or of portions of the Gospel; he chews on it again, as sheep do, and locks it into his heart. From such people, right people also come to be. Thus the first Psalm, verses 2-3, teaches: Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly," etc. (House Postil, 5th Sunday after Trinity.) In applying here to the catechism everything that holds true of the Word of God—since it is indeed a faithful extract of it—he gives at the same time a clear description of a proper catechism student, to which three things belong: that he keeps the chief parts of the catechism in mind, for which hearing, reading, or reciting is required; that he chews again on what he has in mind, or turns it over in his heart; and that he locks it into his heart, or keeps it preserved there.

The manifold benefit of these daily catechism exercises will be best learned by those who faithfully follow Dr. Luther's counsel in this, through their own ever richer experience; for it is impossible to describe in words the whole benefit and all the power of each commandment, each article, each petition, etc., as Dr. Luther himself testifies in the preface to the Large Catechism: "What more should I say? Were I to recount all the benefit and fruit which God's Word works, where would I take enough paper and time? The devil is called a master of a thousand arts; but what, then, shall one call God's Word, which drives away and brings to nothing such a master of a thousand arts, with all his art and power? It must, indeed, be more than a hundred masters of a thousand arts." And shortly before, he says: "Now you ought indeed to gladly read, speak, think, and act upon such parts for this reason alone, even if you had no other fruit or benefit from it than that you could thereby drive away the devil and evil thoughts; for he cannot hear or endure God's Word, and God's Word is not like some other idle chatter, such as tales of Dietrich von Bern, etc., but rather, as Paul says in Romans 1: a power of God—yes, indeed, a power of God, which inflicts burning grief upon the devil, and strengthens, comforts, and helps us beyond measure." In the same preface it further says: "For even if they knew and could do it altogether in the very best way (which, however, is not possible in this life), still there remains behind a manifold benefit and fruit, if one reads it daily and practices it with thoughts and words—namely, that the Holy Spirit is present in such reading, speaking, and thinking, and continually gives new and greater light and devotion to it, so that it always tastes and enters in better and better." Likewise in the House Postil for the 20th Sunday after Trinity: "If we do no more than take up the Ten Commandments or the Lord's Prayer for the space of an hour, there is always found some new fruit, in that one notices and learns something which one had not known before."

Furthermore, the catechism brings to those who diligently practice it the benefit that they are thereby preserved from every kind of error; "For," says Dr. Luther, "if a Christian were diligent, and had nothing more than the catechism—the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the words of the Lord concerning Baptism and the Sacrament of the Altar—he could freely defend himself and hold his ground with it against all heresies. No better word nor better doctrine will ever arise than what is briefly set down in the catechism out of Holy Scripture. Therefore one should hold to it, so that, when a heretic or fanatic rises up and teaches something else, one may say: that is not rightly taught, for it does not agree with my catechism." (House Postil, 8th Sunday after Trinity.)

A remarkable testimony, finally, of how much the Small Catechism has contributed to the flourishing of the whole Reformation, is found in a letter of Dr. Luther to the Margrave of Brandenburg from the year 1531; in it he encourages him toward wholesome ordinances for the diligent practice of the catechism, and then continues: "This same catechism would bring much good, just as it has brought, and still brings, all the good that is now present among our people, and there is no stronger, better art for keeping people faithful to devotion and to the Church than the catechism, as we experience daily."

What Dr. Luther now advised others—to practice daily in the catechism—he himself also did in such a way that in this, no less than in other things, he shines forth as a true example. In particular, all preachers should learn from him to become ever better catechism students, and, as such, ever better catechism teachers as well—the latter not merely in the ordinary examinations, but also in special, regular catechism sermons; in particular, they should learn from him the great art of leading everything they teach out from the catechism and back into it again, of diligently citing it, of setting forth often and urgently the glorious things it contains and the rich fruits it brings, and of untiringly advising and impressing upon others its diligent, indeed daily, practice.

In his own house, too, Dr. Luther pursued the catechism very zealously with his children and servants. He himself says of this: "When I rise in the morning, I pray with the children the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and some psalm besides. I do this only in order to keep myself at it, and so as not to let mildew grow upon it through thinking that I already know it," and shortly thereafter he says: "Therefore no station in life pleases me so well, nor would I rather take up any other, than to be a schoolmaster, so that I thereby compel myself to pray the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer, lest the devil should cause me such rust and weariness." How faithfully he carried on this instruction among the members of his household is attested also by the short and forceful catechism sayings which are recorded in chapter 11 of his Table Talk, and which are to be recommended to every Christian. Something similar might