# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1860_S132
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

132 How the Simple, and Especially the Sick, Are to Be Instructed in Christianity, etc.

...long as I live, that you have died, but rather grant that you outlive me. This I ask in earnest, and it shall also be granted and stand thus, and my will shall be done in this. Amen. For this my will seeks the honor of the divine Name, not my own honor or pleasure — that is certainly true." Myconius recovered enough to be able to continue his labors. Around Christmas of the year 1545 he fell ill again. His sickbed was a scene of the victory and triumph that faith wins over sin, the devil, and the world with all its evil. He had Luther asked to release him now with his blessing, yet only as God should will. Then came the news of Luther's death. Two months later (on April 7, 1546) he too, after the sweetest conversations and with the Song of Simeon, entered into the joy of his LORD.

(The little tract was printed in the year of Myconius's death, by Veit Creutzer in Wittenberg. We give it, for easier use, in more modern spelling.)

First, one should set before them: that we are all sinners and have deserved not only manifold sicknesses, anguish, and distress, but also death and hell. Rom. 3. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one, etc. Rom. 11. God hath concluded all under unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. Rom. 5. Death has passed upon all men, because they have all sinned. Rom. 6. The wages of sin is death. Luke 13. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

Second: how God can bear no sin more ill than when one would go on and heed neither our sin nor his wrath; that would be impenitence and contempt of God. There God will be a judge; for thus it is written, Exod. 19: I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children of them that hate me, unto the third and fourth generation.

Third: as strict and wrathful as God is toward sinners, so gracious is he also toward those who recognize their sin and are heartily terrified because of it, and desire grace and forgiveness of it from God through Christ. For such belong in the Lord's Prayer, where all the saints from their hearts confess their sin and guilt, which is exceeding great — as the 32nd Psalm testifies.

Fourth: here belongs this saying, Isa. 66: I look to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. John 3: For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. Rom. 5: Therefore God commendeth his love toward us, in that Christ...