# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1860_S137
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

How the Simple, and Especially the Sick, Are to Be Instructed in Christianity, etc. 137

4. Further, do you also confess that you have, alas, not done this, but have often acted unknowingly — indeed often also knowingly, willingly, deliberately, and out of pure wickedness — against God and your neighbor? —There let him say: Ah, LORD God, that is all too true, and I confess it.

5. So do you also confess that you have justly deserved God's wrath, punishment, and disfavor in body and soul, and that God would do you no wrong if he were even now to punish you in body and soul? —There let him say: Ah, God is righteous, I am unrighteous; as the 119th Psalm says: LORD, thou art righteous, and thy word is right.

6. Well then, this would now be the greatest and most terrible sin you could commit, if you were still, as before, to go your way and pay no heed to God's wrath and strict judgment, which he threatens against all sinners; then God would, and would have to, punish in you your willfulness and such dreadful contempt. As St. Paul indeed says, 1 Cor. 11, that God will condemn the impenitent world because it will not let itself be chastened. How, then, are you now minded? Do you ask and desire from the bottom of your heart that God would preserve you from such contempt of your own sins, and from his righteous wrath and judgment? —There let him say: This I ask and desire.

7. Do you also desire with your whole heart that God deal with you not according to his divine right and judgment, but according to his fatherly grace and mercy; that is, that he would forgive you your sin and guilt, and, as a merciful, heavenly Father, let his goodness, patience, and forgiveness count and prevail with you more than your sin and folly? —There let him say: Yes, I ask from my heart that he would forgive me my guilt.

8. So God sends you from heaven his beloved only-begotten Son, who is eternally with him and at the same time God with him. He who is in the Father's bosom has declared him to us. John 1 and John 5: Verily, verily, I say unto you: the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do; for what things soever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth, and will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel, etc. God the Father also speaks from heaven, Matt. 3 and 17: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; HIM shall ye hear. Since, then, the heavenly Father sets everything upon this Mediator, and will let all that he speaks and does be well-pleasing, and commands that we hear him, and will also let it stand at that which this Son speaks, mediates, and accomplishes between us and the heavenly Father — so I ask you: Will you also place all your affairs, that is, your wretched, sinful, corrupted condition and misery, upon Christ, and let stand as made, decided, and valid everything that he concludes, speaks, and does? — Answer: God be thanked in eternity, that I may have him as Mediator; I will give myself over to him wholly and trust in him.