# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1860_S18
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

18 Vilmar's Doctrine of the Office and the Church, etc.

comprehensiveness, including the Roman Catholic and Reformed ones, of
which the number will not be under a hundred; once he is done with
that, he must then go on to the individual commentaries on this epistle,
whose number may well also amount to a hundred. Now come at last the
explanations of individual verses, words, and passages, found scattered
in all sorts of theological works, and in particular in countless
dissertations, in topical and devotional writings, which one may reckon
at no fewer than two hundred. Suppose, then, that someone had happily
gotten through all of that — for in truth no one ever really gets through
it — behold, a new commentary appears which, with every compliment
toward the earlier expositors, nevertheless manages to set itself upon a
height never before attained. Quickly the book is ordered, but scarcely
has the eager reader made his way through the prolegomena when a
review by a still more learned man comes to his notice, who, amid much
flattery toward the honored author, nevertheless permits himself, though
with the deepest respect, to point out all manner of shortcomings in him.
Scarcely has one set about examining this more closely when another
review falls into one's hands which contradicts the first in its praise and
blame.

Ah, how many have lost time, strength, and desire over their fruitless
studying! They complain and sigh about it, they seek the cause in their
own clumsiness, in their lack of gifts, instead of in the manner of their
studying. To such I give the following advice: read first of all Luther's
German Bible through entirely, several times over, in the course of a
year, so as first to fix it historically in your memory. If you wish, lay
narrow slips of paper in your Bible, on which you note individual
passages for occasional reference in commentaries. Next, follow the
counsels you find in the first number of the "Lutherophilus"; accordingly
let your chief study be Luther's writings, and that with a continual
indexing of everything that belongs to the several disciplines. Prepare
for your ministerial work in a similar way, but so that you index it
sentence by sentence. Gather, alongside both these labors, notes on the
thoughts that are stirred up by what you have read and experienced, and
on the writings old and new that serve to further a fruitful study of
theology, and especially to elucidate and make use of Luther's writings;
in your leisure hours make yourselves familiar with their contents and
note down the most important matter under fixed headings. Finally,
train yourselves in judging everything you read and hear by the standard
of Luther's doctrine and manner of teaching. The one shows you the right
goal, the other the right way, in theology in general and in the several
disciplines.

Vilmar's Doctrine of the Office and the Church
is set forth and reviewed in the September number of last year of the
Erlangen journal. From it we extract the following, since Vilmar passes
for a leading Lutheran: