# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1860_S16
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

16 Theology Then and Now.

to a right state. The delusion that it does not depend so much on
doctrine as on life separates what God has joined together, as the
exposition of the First Petition teaches, and so it has come about that
doctrine has fallen ever more into decay and life has been ever less
amended. The papacy fell of old not because Dr. Luther first attacked the
wicked life, but because he attacked the false doctrine.

3. Formerly the theologians looked upon themselves as Luther's pupils;
now they look upon themselves as Luther's masters. This shows itself in
the whole manner of treating theology, down to the smallest particulars.
If one compares the writings of Luther's fellow workers and faithful
pupils with his own, one sees in them the fulfillment of the wonderful
dream that Frederick the Wise had in the year 1517 before All Saints'
Day, namely, that out of the mighty pen of the monk at the Wittenberg
Castle Church a multitude of little pens sprang forth and set themselves
in motion. The good leaven of his doctrine and manner of teaching has
leavened all their writings through and through; they are all of them
grapes, greater or smaller, of that fruitful vine; the flowing fire of the
Word of God out of the furnace of temptations poured itself into them in
various forms, with a burning zeal for the honor of the LORD in his
Word and with an iron steadfastness in holding to it. This comes out the
more, the nearer they stood to Luther, the longer they enjoyed his
personal company, and the more they took their reason captive under the
obedience of Christ.

Where is a trace of this to be found now? One will scarcely be able
to point to two sermons by two authors that agree with one another, let
alone with Luther, in their treatment of one and the same Gospel or
catechism topic.

Another advantage of the old time over the new is this, that formerly
theology was treated as a whole, and every single subject in connection
with the whole, whereas later theology was more and more splintered
into separate disciplines, and these again into endless divisions.

Formerly one made a wise distinction among the most necessary, the
more necessary, and the necessary, and drove home the former, or the
chief matters, ever afresh, though in the old way, whereby the needed
comprehensiveness and completeness were not left unheeded; now one
often treats secondary matters as chief matters and the reverse, which,
besides a certain one-sidedness, results in a kind of inundation. Formerly
the whole manner of treatment was simpler, shorter, more intelligible and
more full of substance, whereby even the hardest matter was made easy;
later the very opposite shows itself. Formerly the theologians all spoke
one and the same speech, and this was the church's language, whose
father was Dr. Luther; now almost every theologian speaks a different
language, each after his own fashion. The now more frequent appeal to
Luther's writings is often a proof of ignorance and of the misuse of them,
in that he must in this way serve as a witness for everyone in his own
particular, often quite un-Lutheran views —