# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1858_S253
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Literature. 253

coloring would scare off a crowd of unlearned readers and at the least make the whole considerably more expensive."

2. Luther's Direction of Faith. Its Significance and Position in the Church. A Voice from Württemberg. By Chr. G. Eberle, Pastor. Stuttgart, S. G. Liesching. 1858. 54 pp. Octavo.

The church paper for the evangelical-Lutheran congregations in Prussia, edited by Ehlers, says the following about this work:

"In No. 2 a book by the same author was announced, 'Luther's Exposition of the Gospels,' and what he learned about Luther, in the course of writing that book, through the study of Luther's own writings — that is what the author sets forth in the present book as an answer to three questions, namely: 1. What is the Lutheran, or what is characteristic of Luther — what is the center of his faith, the ground on which he stood, to which he held fast, which guided him also in his stance toward the Reformed? 2. What is the church in Luther's sense? 3. What is Luther's significance and position in the church? The author finds the sum of Luther's faith expressed in these words of Luther's: "God is nowhere to be sought except in Christ, who lies in the manger or wherever else He is — on the cross, in baptism, the Lord's Supper, or the preaching office of the divine Word, or with my neighbor and brother; there I will find Him." Two elements emerge, for the unprejudiced inquirer, from the inner course of Luther's life: the one, subjective, is the justifying faith (holding to this doctrine alone does not yet make one Lutheran; "for this dogma is common to the whole evangelical church"); the other, objective, which joins with the subjective as an inseparable member, is the Word and Sacrament as the means by which Christ gives Himself to us, and as the firm foundation of faith. To this the author adds this remark: "A man may distinguish all the tenets of the Lutheran doctrine of faith and make them his own, without thereby, as a preacher, representing the Lutheran direction of faith or making himself known as a kindred spirit of Luther's." — — The basic concept of the church in Luther is also expressed in the last part of that same sentence: Christ is in baptism, etc. "The church is where Christ is. But where is Christ? In the preaching office of the divine Word, in the sacraments, with the brother. The order of the words, too, is not to be disregarded. Word and sacrament first — the brethren after." "It is not the church that makes the Word and the sacraments...; rather, the Word and the sacraments make the church." "Therefore the church, known inwardly to Him alone, is also outwardly recognized by this alone: that it has His Word, that is, the preaching of the Gospel, and His sacraments." — — "With Luther the church on earth reached the high point of its consciousness of faith." "The church of the future will be none other than the church in the spirit of Luther."